


Two Ships Passing

by babyrubysoho



Series: Sea Wolf [1]
Category: Big Bang (Band), GTOP (Band)
Genre: Adaptation, Alternate Universe - 1910s, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Bitchy Jiyong, Dysfunctional Family, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Love/Hate, M/M, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Psychological Warfare, Resentment, Revenge, Sailing, Sassy Kwon Jiyong | G-Dragon, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Todae (platonic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 64,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24839791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyrubysoho/pseuds/babyrubysoho
Summary: With the freezing wastes of Alaska on one shore and Russia on the other, hunting in the Bering Sea is no job for a gentleman. But when wealthy and gently-raised Daesung and Youngbae are shipwrecked off the coast of Japan in 1911 they find they have no choice in the matter: rescued by two ship’s captains – cruel competitors and mortal enemies – bound for seal-hunting waters, the young men are about to get a terrifying new outlook on life. And they’ll soon wish they had never fallen in with Kwon the Viper and Choi the Wolf.(An adaptation of Jack London'sThe Sea Wolf.)
Relationships: Choi Seunghyun | T.O.P./Kwon Jiyong | G-Dragon
Series: Sea Wolf [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861156
Comments: 104
Kudos: 64





	1. The Cruel Ship's Captain

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my latest GTOP period drama, this time set in the early 1910s!  
> As GTOP fics go I guess this one is a little unorthodox, as it's based on a novel I've adapted to have two narrators: Daesung and Jiyong. So the GTOP is established but at the same time _extremely_ slow burn, and it's as much a character story between Seunghyun, Daesung, and Jiyong as anything else. (Also, most of the characters are total bastards, so expect dark, bitter, and a complete lack of cute until the final chapter!)
> 
>  _Mini-rant on the literary inspo for this fic, feel free to skip over it if you want:_  
>  So this is an adaptation of Jack London's semi-autobiographical novel, _The Sea Wolf_. The location (the coast of Japan and the Bering Sea) and theme is the same, I've just brought it forward 20 years and changed the characters from American to Korean, which actually works pretty well as they were all sailing in the same basic area. 
> 
> I've followed the book fairly closely in the first half, adding in the Jiyong POV from the 2009 mini-series adaptation (Tim Roth woo!), but in the second half it veers off to allow for the romance. This is deliberate quite apart from the desire for GTOP, because although London was extremely good at writing fascinating relationships between men (and fairly homoerotic descriptions of hot guys!) - and even between man and dog ( _Call of the Wild_ is totally a platonic romance!) - his hetero romance scenes were sappy, saccharine and patronizing - even his contemporary critics called the first half of the novel a masterpiece and the second (as soon as a woman steps aboard) a complete washout ^^;
> 
> (FYI Jack London was a massive and total asshole. But he was a great writer, so I will happily subvert his bigotry and make everyone gay and Asian XD)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daesung is plucked from an immanent watery grave, and meets his devilishly handsome – or simply devilish – new captain.

I was alive. This took some believing, but gradually I came round to the idea and started breathing again.

I’d woken up to such a quantity of water around me – in my nose and my throat, soaked into my skin – that I was certain I had finally drowned, or was about to. It was only the dim awareness of a hard surface beneath me that made me think I hadn’t. That, and a voice: the first human voice I’d heard in what seemed days.

“Now then mate, open up them eyes.” I hacked, a deep, retching cough from down in my lungs, and some of the drowning sensation receded as salt water was expelled from my throat; but when I tried opening my eyes I found I couldn’t. I croaked something to that effect, and in a while I felt more water being patted onto my face and over my eyelids; I writhed weakly in protest. “Salt,” said the nasal voice. “Caked on.” I tried lifting my lids again: it hurt, but once the painful blur had resolved itself I saw before me a face. It was a man, with small eyes, a thin, aquiline nose, and a grubby scarf tied round his head – the whole not improved by the furtive, considering look he was giving me. Still, I was too grateful to be alive to care about niceties: to me he looked like an angel.

“…Thank you,” I managed in a rasp, and as the rest of my body put in its bill of pain, chills, and exhaustion I added dazedly: “Where am I…?” Upon hearing my voice my rescuer, or so I guessed, abandoned his suspicious expression and smiled.

“Sealing schooner Neukdae, sir,” he told me; it struck me simultaneously that he was speaking not Japanese but Korean, and that the smile didn’t quite reassure me. But by the change in countenance and his transition from ‘mate’ to ‘sir’ I supposed he’d now guessed from my accent – or at least my sodden suit – that I was a gentleman. Ah, _that_ was the smile: the face of a man angling for a tip. “Which we are in the East Sea, maybe two hundred miles off the West coast of Japan, sir.” A fishing vessel from my homeland this far out? That was surely unusual, and it made my anxiety creep up another notch.

“I…I fell off the Nagasaki packet,” I said slowly. Two hundred? I must have drifted fifty miles! And…it began to come back to me: I hadn’t fallen, I’d been _knocked off_. Yes. I’d been strolling on deck at night, I couldn’t sleep after a little too much Japanese wine, and I’d seen a man – another passenger, though of what nationality I couldn’t tell – offering what looked like violence to one of the ship’s boys. I’d intervened, of course, though I was probably little stronger than that boy; a daily routine of books made me a poor rescuer. I had thought the man would hurry off, ashamed at being caught doing something so indelicate. Instead he punched me, and at just the wrong moment: perhaps there was a large wave, or something else that made the ship heel – I stumbled backwards, felt the rail beneath me, and then I was in the water, smothered by waves as I tried to scream. To my disbelief my attacker didn’t raise the alarm, and the boy had already escaped. His one concession to the man he’d as good as murdered was to throw me a life-ring before darting out of sight. And the rest…I didn’t care to remember the rest.

“You’re safe and sound now, sir,” the man reassured me. He grinned, as if there was some joke there. When I scowled he hurried his face back into something approaching pleasantness. “And who might we have the pleasure of saving?”

“Kang Daesang. My father is…” I paused: sentiment against the Japanese was naturally high among Koreans – it was only the previous year that Japan had officially announced its annexation of our country. Telling all and sundry that my family was currently maintaining its rank through cordial relations with our colonizers might not be the wisest idea, so I amended my announcement to: “…Well. He has some influence.”

“Yangban,” said my rescuer, who now looked as though he wasn’t sure whether to spit or ask for a bigger tip. I nodded.

“And who should _I_ be thanking at this moment?”

“Park Myungsoo,” he told me, giving me a bow – there was hardly headroom for him to stand in any case, though he was a small man. “Cook aboard the Neukdae, and very grateful for your remembrance, sir.” His little eyes scanned my clothing, possibly looking for pockets. As a matter of fact I _had_ been carrying cash, though I wasn’t sure of the state of it now. “But you’ll catch your death,” he added in what I suppose was solicitude. “How’s about I dry your things? You can put on some of mine, if you don’t mind, sir.” I had begun to shiver violently, so I mustered up some gratitude and nodded. Park Myungsoo returned with a pair of loose laborers’ pants, the kind that cuff at the bottom to keep them out of the way, and an old-fashioned hessian shirt. Korean fishermen’s garb, but I couldn’t imagine any self-respecting fisherman wearing such a collection of stains and holes. They smelled, but they were dry; when I put them on they scraped my already battered skin, and I suspected they’d been washed in salt water. Myungsoo sniffed a little at my expression but continued to chatter. “Wasn’t me as fished you out, sir: it was Captain Choi.”

“Choi?”

“Don’t know his whole name, sir, no-one does. But they said he hopped in and plucked you out without losing barely any way. A real fine swimmer,” he said in a tone of deep envy. “He shook most of the water out of you, and…well, here you are.”

“Then my thanks ought to go to the captain,” I suggested, struggling up. My head hit something above me and I winced: the cook’s quarters were extremely narrow, just a bunk and a bit of sailcloth separating us from what must be the galley. “Though I won’t forget your kindness!” I assured him. Myungsoo beamed, but of course it was the captain I must see, and not just to thank him: I needed to be landed immediately, had to let my family know I was safe! Even if I took the next packet from Nagasaki I would arrive home late – my poor mother and sisters would be in a panic. “Can I see him?”

“Best to pick your moment,” the cook inexplicably advised me. He lowered his voice. “He wasn’t in the best mood before he pulled you out, and he went right back to it after.”

“Why?” I asked with a frown, “what’s happened?”

“Oh, he happened, sir. It’s just him.” I nodded slowly: I supposed for a sailor there must be a constant tension in having a touchy captain, but it wasn’t something I needed to be concerned with – especially if I offered him recompense for dropping me off. Why, I might be on land tomorrow with a bit of luck. “Right now, though, he’s dealing with some insubordination – the idiots,” Myungsoo added in an aside.

“Surely a good captain can handle that sort of nonsense easily?” I said. Respect for authority had always seemed to me particularly distinct at sea, and besides, this was a commercial vessel, not a warship bound for danger and death – what was there to be insubordinate about? Myungsoo let out an abrupt laugh through his nose, an unpleasant sound but genuine.

“Maybe he’s a great man, maybe he’s the devil – but from the moment we signed on to the Neukdae we’ve not seen a scrap of ‘good’. One of the steerers – they’re the lads who go out with the hunters after the seals, sir – took a swing at him just now after he beat two of the crew half to death this morning,” Myungsoo informed me conversationally. He laughed again. “So now he’s beating _him_ to death.” I felt myself go pale: what kind of ship _was_ this? “I daresay you’ll hear ‘em if you listen close,” the cook went on, jabbing a bony finger upward. I listened: the rattle of cooking pots, the creak of wood and canvas, the sound of water all around. Then a muffled grunt, a faint thud, and a couple of voices raised in what sounded like encouragement.

“What’ll happen?!” I demanded, feeling the natural shrinking sensation and vague nausea that any decent man experiences at senseless violence.

“Whatever the Wolf chooses,” said Myungsoo with a grin that was part fear and part enjoyment. I knit my eyebrows: what did he mean? ‘Wolf’ – Neukdae – was the name of the ship, was it not? Did these superstitious sailors really think their vessels were alive? “That’s what we call him,” Myungsoo explained. “For the ship, you know. But also-” There was a crash from above, and what sounded like a snarl. “-That.”

“…Choi the Wolf.”

“That’s right, sir: now you know what’s what.” I shivered again. I couldn’t imagine what I could do about the obvious abuse of power going on above my head – but I had to do _something_ , said my conscience. I struggled out of the bunk; perhaps my appearance and thanks, in conjunction with the offer of a fat reward, might be enough of a distraction. He sounded a simple, brutish man: money would no doubt be effective. Myungsoo helped me obsequiously to the foot of a set of stairs so narrow they were almost a ladder, then declined to come any further, telling me: “On your head be it!” He obviously thought I was mad. I climbed with trembling limbs and emerged in bright, clear air and sunshine – and there I got my first good look at the man who had saved my life.

“You can beg me to stop whenever you please,” I heard a voice growl – then the distinct sound of a boot hitting a body. I stared wildly down the unfamiliar deck, which was crowded with men all gazing upon two figures amidships: one upright and one prone. Half of them looked dumbly horrified, the other half detached, even entertained. “You goddamn stupid bugger!” barked the attacker, giving the body another powerful kick. “Come on – tell me!” The man – hardly more than a boy, I saw as I staggered closer – groaned.

“Which he did say stop five minute ago,” commented one watcher neutrally. The tall man, who could only be the Neukdae’s captain, ignored him and made to land another blow, but at my cry as I saw blood on the deck his head snapped round to face me and I met the eyes of Choi the Wolf.

What a first impression! His lips were drawn back from his teeth, dark eyes wide and hands clawed at his sides, his lean but powerful chest heaving as he drew breath; to yell at me, or perhaps to bound across like the beast he then resembled and disembowel me. That was my impression: an animal more than a man, his nature even simpler and more vile than I’d imagined. I jerked back and almost fell, not used to having a solid, moving floor under me; then, to my great confusion, his face flowed from inhuman rage to a thoroughly confident calm.

“If you’ll wait a moment,” he said after another much-needed gasp for breath, “I’m administering ship’s discipline.” He tucked a piece of long hair back into its topknot, nodded at me politely, and turned back to his assault.

“ _Stop_!!” I yelled desperately in Korean, unable to help myself. “There, for god’s sake, you’ve heard it!” Every other man on deck went po-faced and directed their attention to me in utter fascination – and perhaps some anticipation. To my great relief he did stop, one foot raised; after a moment’s consideration he lowered it and gave his victim a look of disgusted forbearance.

“Kim Jongkook,” he called, motioning to a hugely muscled sailor who’d been watching him with barely less horror than I. “See to Sakurai – and see to it that _I_ don’t lay eyes on him for some time! Oh, and clean up.” The big man nudged one of his crewmates and they grabbed the pathetic figure – Japanese, by his name – and humped him down a ladder out of sight. Nothing remained other than a smeared mess of blood, but the crew didn’t move: evidently there was more to be seen. Choi wiped a splash of gore from his face with the back of his hand and strode towards me with the easy rolling sailor’s walk I’d never managed to pick up on my short voyages. As he drew near my bewilderment grew: not only did he look nothing like he had half a minute ago, he looked nothing like I’d imagined him at all. Could a devil really wear such a face? Because his was _perfect_.

“Thank you,” I whispered as he approached, more to God than to him. After a swift, sharp glance he nodded at me.

“Well. Here you are,” he said. His breathing – slightly accelerated after that beating, no more – had quickly returned to normal; his voice was very deep and not unpleasant, only a little gravelly from years of making himself heard at sea. “With all your limbs in working order? Good.” For a minute I couldn’t answer him, still aghast at the scene that had greeted me; I couldn’t imagine what grave infraction that poor young man had really committed. Evidently the cook’s words had been at least partly true: textbook masculine beauty or no, this Choi was not a captain to be trifled with. He barked a command to the sailor at the helm, some correction of our course – how anyone could have their mind on their work after such a fill of brutality was beyond me, but the man attended at once. “Did you lose your tongue in the water?” Choi demanded next, his tone hovering ambiguously around courtesy. I scrabbled my thoughts back to my one now very urgent object.

“I’m Kang Daesung,” I said breathlessly, and when that got no reaction added: “I…I was knocked off my ship. I suppose more than a day, two days ago. Over…” I waved my arm at the full circle of sea-filled skyline and realized I had no idea from which direction I had come. The captain glanced idly at a sailor dawdling over a rope nearby; the man ducked his head and hurried away, and when I glanced at Choi’s split knuckles I didn’t wonder why.

“You sailed from Daehan Jeguk?” He returned his attention to me and inventoried my borrowed peasant’s garments with a sardonic eyebrow; it was clear he could read my sensations at having them touch my skin. “A pleasure cruise?” His use of our old word for the Empire instead of the new Japan-mandated Joseon gave me a moment’s pause, although his tone didn’t impart any particular significance – merely sarcasm. Still, I needed to know where we were, so I told him.

“No. Nagasaki.”

“And you make a habit of falling out of Japanese tubs?” His thick brows drew down a little and his gaze sharpened. His eyes were almost foreign-looking, large and fine and thoughtful though I couldn’t tell what was behind them; almost impossible eyes, given what I had heard and seen of his character in my few short minutes aboard. I shook my head.

“I was coming home – to Gyeongseong,” I told him, careful not to use the term by which my Japanese acquaintances – and my parents, at least in public – now referred to the capital city: Keijō.

“So you were visiting our Colonial masters?” inquired the captain. For an instant his upper lip curled back, revealing white teeth in what might be a fierce smile or a snarl and betraying the more likely origin of his nickname. Some primal instinct made my muscles prepare to flinch back; but the Wolf vanished as quickly as he had appeared, and the stern master of the Neukdae reclined against a halyard. “Or is it that you earn your bread there?”

“…I do work there.” I couldn’t help hedging, and I knew he’d noticed. His perspicacity was as evident as it was unusual for a man of his type. Choi called out some unintelligible instructions in his deep voice to what I presumed was the mate, and several of the men stopped gawking and sprang into action. The singing of the wooden ship took on a new note as the trim was adjusted. My landsman’s heart rose at the possibility – the hope – that we were changing course for Nagasaki, or any port at all.

“I’ll pay you well to put me ashore,” I said gratefully. “Whatever you judge it worth for the loss of your time.” Choi simply smiled.

“Whatever I judge? That might be a great deal, for all you know. And how does a young man earn that sort of living?” I felt myself flush – if this were any other man I would have asked what business it was of his, but his air made me think that might be unwise.

“Well-” Cut off, I let out a startled cry as Choi gripped my wrist with wicked speed and lifted my hand for inspection. His own weren’t exactly massive, rather what you’d call handsome, long-fingered: an artist’s hands, you would think, if not for the scrapes and scars and calluses so rough they were like sandpaper on my skin. And so strong, somehow, that although he wasn’t squeezing hard my entire body felt the imminent danger of broken bones. It was astonishing: while a tall and robust man, he wasn’t huge – that sailor for’ard had been far larger – and I couldn’t conceive how he could hold me so easily, with scarcely a constriction of his fingers. Later I would come to understand that you couldn’t separate the physical strength of the man from his…I won’t say moral conviction, the Wolf had no morals a normal man could measure…his _mental vigor_. The combination of the two was paralyzing.

“What work have these hands ever done?” he queried, sounding interested. “They might as well be a lady’s.”

“I’m a student,” I told him coldly, snatching my hand back and knowing it was because he had allowed it. “At Kyoto University.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“A slow learner?” His tone was curious, nothing more.

“I’m reading for a post-graduate degree.”

“Physics? Engineering?” A brighter note, as if I might turn out worth a damn after all.

“Literature!” A fleeting flash of _something_ crossed his gaze; the incongruous long lashes opened almost hungrily. Then he snorted.

“In Japanese, I suppose.”

“Mostly.” I was sure from his earlier hints that I had a fervent patriot on my hands, and I spoke hesitantly. But I _had_ worked hard, contending with the prejudice of the more imperialist Japanese students – which was to say, many of them. Why shouldn’t I be proud of my achievements?

“Well,” said Choi drily, “that might come in useful. But who pays for it? And what can you do with yourself afterwards?”

“I have a private income.” I intended to write criticism, perhaps do some journalism: to bring the philosophies of modernity to my country through literature.

“Ah. A ‘gentleman’. Your father’s income, yes?” I couldn’t deny that. Choi’s sculpted jaw hardened, though his tone didn’t change. “And he stood upon his father’s shoulders, I don’t doubt. And back and back, all the way down to the peasants at the bottom.”

“That’s hardly my fault!” I burst out.

“No; it’s natural.” He smiled, as if he knew something fundamental to life of which I had no inkling. “The natural, piggish order of things. But you can hardly expect my respect for it.”

“And yet it’s what will pay you however much you please to drop me off.” If the cash in my sodden clothes wasn’t enough I could draw more in Nagasaki. The bigger man stopped peering along the deck and shrugged, muscles moving beneath his western-style shirt – unlike the rest of the crew, who wore a motley combination of Korean and other miscellaneous working clothes, he was dressed like an American.

“No,” he said calmly. I stared at him; the word took a moment to register.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I have reason for reaching the hunting grounds without delay,” he told me. “It’s not a question of money. And besides,” he added, the white vulpine teeth emerging again, “I dare say this will be good for you.”

“…What will?” A foreboding clutched at my chest; exhausted and doubtless sickening from my days-long dip in the East Sea, I began to shiver.

“Working for me.” My jaw dropped in disbelief. “A chance to earn an honest wage for a change; to feel first-hand how the rest of us battle and squirm to thrive.” Choi clapped me on the back in an unconvincing façade of comradeship. “We’ll be out three or four months. You start at the bottom, of course – cabin boy. But you’ll get a regular wage and a share of the profits.” The smile widened. “And if you squirm hard enough through the morass…” He gestured at the working sailors and disreputable figures doing nothing much but stare at me in amusement. “Who knows, you might make sixty yen a month!” I spent that much on novels. His expression was malicious now, and thoroughly entertained. Those noble features shouldn’t be able to make such a face; but they did. And he meant it.

“You’ve no authority – it’s kidnapping!” I exclaimed, unable to help myself. Choi straightened up – only a fraction, but it was enough to close my mouth.

“Words,” he said. “I _do_ find them interesting – as I’m sure you do, being an _educated man_. And perhaps we’ll while away some time sparring with them; you say kidnap, I say expediency. But at this moment, in fact at most moments, they mean very little in practical terms: nothing you could say will induce me to inconvenience myself. We’ll reach the Bering Sea in three weeks if the wind holds – that’s all.”

“That’s-”

“You’ve no power to make me do otherwise,” he informed me. This was intolerable: I wasn’t a crew member, bound to treat this man’s word as law! His legal position, to say nothing of the ethical, was untenable.

“But any man with a sense of responsibility must…”

“Responsibility? My duty as a man-” The top lip curled again, “-is to my ship and my haul – which is to say, to myself.” I stared: between my time with my influential family and my time among the elite leaders-in-embryo of Japan I had of course encountered arrogance, superiority and profound self-centeredness; but never had I met anyone who simply acknowledged it out loud. Desperate, I tried another tack.

“But your _moral_ duty-” Choi stared at me as if astonished; so did everyone else. Then he burst out laughing. It was a frank and open laugh, and it chilled me because of what it meant for my own helpless hide. He put out a hand and nudged me in amusement; a mere tap to him, but with his tremendous strength and in my weakened state it knocked me off my feet and sent me bowling back against the hatch from which I’d emerged. I could hear the watching men chuckle amongst themselves as I nursed the throbbing pain in my arm. But Choi the Wolf had stopped laughing.

“Cooky!” he yelled, and Park Myungsoo’s head appeared beside mine. The contrast between the cook and his captain was striking: by their looks and bearing one ought to judge Choi a fine and remarkable man, but Myungsoo’s villainous features suddenly seemed much the preferable sight. “Take Mr. Kang Daesung below and show him his duties – you’re his master now!” Myungsoo’s expression went from servility through bewilderment to a slow grin of delight I didn’t care for at all; but I was too battered to do more than protest as he grabbed me and almost pulled me down the ladder. The last thing I saw before I vanished from the daylight was Choi’s handsome face, watching with the grave interest of a scientist at the commencement of a new experiment.

* * *

In the week that followed I discovered I had more capacity within myself to hate than I had ever dreamed. I hated the Wolf – how could I not, after what he’d condemned me to on a whim? I hated the cramped ship, most of its sailors, and the degenerate gang that called themselves hunters. But to my great surprise I hated Park Myungsoo above all.

It took less than a day to realize that ‘cabin boy’ in practical terms meant ‘everybody’s slave’. Officially, however, it meant I was Myungsoo’s assistant. The realization that he now had someone to boss – and a yangban’s son at that – quite turned his head, which I soon gathered was not robust of mind or morals to begin with. From the moment Choi stripped me of my rights and sent me down the ladder the cook insulted me, cuffed me, and forced me to the most disgusting manual labor in the filthy confines of the galley. I was weak and ill from my time overboard; it meant nothing to him. The first time he struck me across the shoulders with a ladle I was so shocked I simply stared at him: I hadn’t been hit since I was a small boy wrangling with my schoolmates. I froze there, arms full with the huge rice pot, for so long that he did it again, striking my ear and filling it with blood. Looking back I know this only encouraged him; but I shrank from violence myself and my words of remonstration only made him crow harder.

The second time it happened he threatened me with a knife when I screwed up my courage to lunge at him. I had good reason: upon shuffling into the tiny corner in which my bunk was slung I saw Myungsoo there, bent over the sack that housed my meager personal possessions.

“What’re you doing?” I demanded loudly. He jumped but smoothed down the hole-filled blanket and smirked.

“What’re you doing, _sir_?” He wasn’t armed with any cooking implements at the moment so I ignored that and stepped towards him. I wasn’t a strong man at that time, in terms of body at least: I’d be the first to acknowledge myself weak. However, I was still bigger than the under-bred and undernourished cook: as I loomed over him he ducked past me and scuttled out. The thought of him touching my things revolted me. I’d found lifelong sailors like the huge Kim Jongkook to be a clean set of people within the limited washing options given them in the Neukdae, but Myungsoo left grease on everything he touched; the crew complained about his food daily, the main reason – other than my poor balance – why I kept myself off the deck and away from their company. Now when I checked my belongings I found everything, such as it was, present. Then I opened my purse: waterproofed and highly decorated, it had been a present from my sisters and had survived its spell in the water. There were only a few small coins left, and I knew exactly what had happened to the rest!

“You have my money,” I told Myungsoo, fearless for the moment in my righteous anger. “Give it back.” This was different from knocks and general abuse: this was theft.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.” He was chopping cabbage. His little eyes were darting left-right, left-right as I approached. What had he done with the money? I wondered, steeling myself for the distasteful task of searching his person it he didn’t own up.

“It was in my purse, in my bag, on my bunk. Where _you_ were, you liar!” In my circle being called a liar was a terrible insult; Myungsoo didn’t even blink.

“Prove it.”

“I will once I search you, you hound!” As I set my jaw to go about this, however, Myungsoo picked up the kitchen knife and began making vigorous slashing motions in my direction. Naturally I backed up quickly, heart racing: Myungsoo was certainly a moral coward but I couldn’t gauge what he might actually do if provoked.

“If you know what’s good for you, boy,” he told me in an infuriating tone of triumph, “you’ll peel them carrots. And seeing as I have the only sharp blade in the place…” This was true, his instruments were in a deplorable state of rust and disrepair. “Let’s hear no more about it.” With no other choice at present I shut my mouth and fumed under his self-satisfaction.

For the rest of the day I said silent prayers of fortitude while he did all the knife-work and I did all the hauling; sensibly I waited, then spoke to Choi about it when Myungsoo sent me to clear the plates from supper. The captain and the seal hunters dined in what I at first considered cramped conditions near the rear of the ship beside Choi’s cabin, while the rest of the crew stuffed themselves into the zoo-like compartment for’ard. It was not quite high enough for me to stand straight, so whenever I went in there I found myself forced into an attitude of deference that was quite contrary to my real feelings: I loathed the lot of them.

“May I speak with you?”

“ _Sir_ ,” said Choi, pushing back his plate and fixing me with his great eyes. I flushed angrily – on top of everything else, now I had to acknowledge the inferior position into which he’d forced me? At the other end of the table the hunters – a debauched-looking bunch of men – were abusing the ship’s soju supply in the short space of time Choi allowed them every night; they were so raucous, fighting amongst themselves, that it made it less noticeable to give in, which I inevitably did: he was no Myungsoo.

“Sir,” I said ungraciously.

“Well, Dae, how’s the seafaring life agreeing with you?” I bridled again at the familiarity that placed me still lower, but as I could do nothing about it without getting even more of what I’d come to complain about, I went ahead and told him about Myungsoo’s unhygienic setup and personal abuse of me – then I described the theft.

“It’s not to be borne, sir!” I cried. That at least he would have to agree with: never had I met an officer who allowed stealing amongst his men, it was lethal to morale and hard work.

“I agree,” Choi said, surprisingly mild. This mollified me a little, until he cocked his head and asked: “How do you propose to get it back?”

“You just said…”

“I acknowledged I wouldn’t bear it – if it was me. And if you’re a man nor will you. So: what’ll you do to pry Cooky’s sly fingers off your not-at-all-hard-earned cash?”

“What _can_ I do, without your authority?!” It was a wrench to admit he had such authority; then again his dominion over this floating world was so plain a cat could have seen it. Choi spread his hands and regarded them thoughtfully.

“Any authority I have – that any man has – comes from power. There are all kinds of power, of course, I can see you thinking of them now: there are those you’re used to – bureaucratic, economic, class, and moral power. That’s how the leaders of ‘civilized’ society – who are generally old or weak or stupid – wield control over men and women with far better natural faculties.”

“Isn’t that the power a ship’s captain wields?” I couldn’t help asking. “Sir.”

“Generally, the Navy in particular. In the simpler course of things you’d call it economic power: the crew of a commercial ship stays because they wish to fill their bellies and their purses; nothing else compels them to do so. Isn’t that right, Sun?” One of the hunters, who had left off shouting and were watching us owlishly, started. Then he shrugged. Choi sighed. “But in _my_ ship, Dae, and this is something you’d be wise to learn early, they _come_ thanks to economic power – but they stay and behave because of something more fundamental.”

“The need to band together, to bring their frail craft home safe?” I said, thinking wistfully of the moral principle and nautical stories full of plucky heroes. Choi gave me a pitying look.

“No. _Me_.” He flexed his hands again. “That’s the only way I keep my authority: personal strength, physical and mental. Half these men would love to jump ship, though we’re little more than a week out! But I shall keep them, Dae: with my fists or my brains I’ll keep them, for _my_ economic power is something I plan to increase. They’re welcome to try their luck exercising their own natural authority – but most of them won’t.” I thought of the young Japanese sailor I’d seen being battered my first day aboard. “That’s life,” he added complacently. “The endless bitter struggle to emerge on top. And that’s how _you’ll_ come out on top: if you want your money back from Cooky you’ll have to fight him!” This was my first brief insight into Choi’s unusual mental process, but at the time I was too concerned with my own woes to give it the attention it merited.

“But he has a knife!”

“Then get armed,” he suggested, “or get clever. Use that educated mind for something you really want!” I stared at him hopelessly. Choi gestured impatiently at the table and I cleared the plates so I might go and seethe in safety: he wouldn’t lift a finger to help me. I was on my way out, striking my head on a low beam for the hundredth time as I did so, when I heard the Wolf say: “Either way, Dae, I shall watch your progress with interest.”

* * *

I did nothing about Myungsoo, who slept with my money and the kitchen knife presumably on his person. Quite apart from being scared, my whole rational being resisted the idea of violence or sneaking on my part: I was still fundamentally myself, and some things I couldn’t yet bring myself to do. Instead I continued the miserable drudgery of a cabin boy, and after some hard knocks – malicious and accidental – and some stern talks to myself about fortitude I grew slightly less useless at it.

At the moment I was doing my duties with a limp. I had been ordered on deck with Choi’s morning coffee and I climbed the ladder at an angle of some thirty degrees; when I emerged I saw the sea filled with explosions of white as the waves broke upon each other in a strong and contrary wind. The Neukdae was plunging extremely, or so I thought at the time, and I could scarcely stand up. I stumbled over to the mainmast and clung there with my free arm, looking for the captain. To my amazement the sailors were behaving as if we were sailing upon a mill-pond: standing with their hands in their pockets, climbing comfortably in the rigging – they were doing the never-ending maintenance of a sail ship – or at their stations by helm and lookout post. I spotted Choi haranguing a man twenty years his senior, who turned out to be the bosun, about some problem with a set of ropes. Bravely letting go I was making my way towards him when a freak pitch and roll like a shying horse sent me flying into the rail: I was going, I was going over! Then a hand grasped me by the seat of my pants and hauled me inboard; Choi dumped me on the deck, where he and the bosun openly laughed at me.

“Is that my coffee?” demanded Choi, seeing the dark liquid spilling from the sleeve of my ancient borrowed coat, whence the pot had somehow traveled. I nodded anxiously and he gave me a modulated version of the wolf snarl; I gathered he was even less human than usual before his first dose of caffeine. “Hell and death,” he said crossly. Shaking with my most recent proximity to a watery grave I held up the pot and what remained of its contents – the cup had gone overboard – and he stuck the spout in his mouth and drank. “You’re the most helpless, mewling kitten that ever trod a deck,” he informed me with disdain, giving me back the pot. “And you think you’re too good to be cabin boy!”

“If this ship didn’t have such griping, inconsiderate qualities,” I began, feeling bruised all down one side. Then Choi really did look angry, and I stopped.

“She’s the finest sailor on the station!” he barked, reaching out a hand to touch her rigging with what seemed like genuine affection. “Sweet lines and perfectly willing, even with lumps like these manning her.”

I later learned from Jongkook, whose sole shared quality with Choi was a love of sail, that the Neukdae was not owned by a merchant company as was usual in the sealing industry but belonged to Choi himself. How he’d come by her no-one seemed to know: hard savings or gaming or piracy, the odds seemed about equal. But it was the one thing in the world – other than money – they’d ever known him to give a damn about. When, much later, I came by some seamanship of my own I would appreciate her, at least in comparison to the steamships that populated the North Pacific. The Neukdae was a somewhat antique but trim topsail schooner of the previous century, a slightly unusual arrangement, I thought: a fore-and-aft rig with square topsails that made her versatile in most directions. Though not showy she was very fast on her favorite points of sail and could lie close to the wind; Choi had had her some years and everything had been altered entirely to his liking. Even his detractors – who were almost universal – allowed that he was a fine seaman.

It was perhaps his lack of any normal human relationships that made the Neukdae’s captain react so snappishly to my criticism; or maybe it was just him. In any case he hauled me up off the deck and literally threw me towards the hatchway.

“Until you stop crawling like a baby you can stay below!” he yelled over the wind. I landed awkwardly and scrambled for the ladder, missed my footing, and plunged down it to its foot. Myungsoo heard and came to cackle at me; then he dragged me into the galley and made me work without rest, tears of pain at my twisted kneecap streaming down my face.

I was lame for days, but no laying-up was allowed. At home I’d be confined to bed, surrounded by doctors and my sisters with cool cloths and sweets. Here I served everyone, cleaned everything, did most of the cooking – Myungsoo was becoming lazy – and, apparently, took care of the captain’s private cabin. Myungsoo didn’t bother telling me about that for the first week, and when he finally did it was with merry warnings about how angry Choi was and what he’d do to me if I didn’t have the place shining top to bottom within the next afternoon – but that if I disturbed so much as a leaf of paper I’d be killed: there was a secret in that cabin, everyone knew it, something the skipper spent hours with and kept shut up there. So I grabbed my bucket and supplies and limped with haste towards the stern. I’ll admit that physically I was terrified of even his rumored anger. However, in the end I was glad I went.

When I hobbled into the room I was immediately dumbfounded. I had previously upgraded my characterization of Choi from my first impression of vicious brute to a brute with a rude, intuitive intelligence: a peasant born with an active but undirected mind, and the worse for it. And indeed there was a long locked cabinet stuffed with rifles and other weapons – for the hunters, it transpired. But on his desk was an intricate and quite beautiful navigational instrument, half-built – he was designing it himself, he told me later. I’d thought that might be his secret treasure; he was eager to explain it, however, though the numbers were over my head. And the oddest thing: on his shelves were books upon books, lined up in their dozens and well thumbed – classics of our homeland, geography, mathematics, poetry – and beside them seminal works in English upon every topic from anatomy to philosophy. What a bizarre collection; how astounding that they should be here at all! Myungsoo could barely read hanja and I imagined half the crew to be the same. What _was_ this man?

I’d taken down a volume of Darwin and was perusing the underlines and scribbled notes in the margin when I heard a step behind me. I whirled round and saw Choi walk in.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said casually. I knew it: he could move quietly as a stalking beast, but he rarely chose to – the sneak attack wasn’t his tactic, and whatever scare stories Myungsoo had been giving me seemed to my relief to be unfounded. He darted a look at the desk, which I hadn’t touched, then put his hands in his pockets. “You’ve found my home at last, I see. Good: it’s a mess.” I stood there guiltily holding the book, the cabin unswabbed, but he didn’t seem angry. “And how’s your feud with Cooky coming along?” It wasn’t coming at all as far as reclaiming my money went, which he knew perfectly well.

“Where did you _get_ all these?” I asked instead, receiving a minute smile of satisfaction. While no sneak he did like to surprise me. He shrugged and glanced at his shelves fondly.

“Oh, I picked them up here and there. They help keep me from dashing my brains out with boredom.” He stepped closer and glanced at the title I was holding.

“A literature student, you said.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you speak English?” He sounded eager suddenly, and his eyes lit up in that odd way I’d seen only once or twice since I met him.

“I can read it.” Another smile, nothing sardonic about it.

“I’m glad,” he said. “Not that it makes you a more useful being in the grand scheme of things.” Of course. “But there _are_ things I’d like to talk about – to ask.” He crossed to a shelf and took down a book: Nietzsche’s _Beyond Good and Evil_. “There’s so much in these,” he observed thoughtfully. “The superman, and everything else… But I never had any formal learning; I picked up English in the American ships and the rest comes out of my own head. It’s hard to know where to start – what to choose, how to pick these thinkers apart.” He sighed a little. “I get in a sad muddle sometimes.” I didn’t wonder: though I privately thought nihilism chimed nicely with his worldview, Nietzsche must have been utterly bewildering to stumble upon unprepared. “But to have someone to talk to, someone with the framework…”

“I’d be happy to,” I told him quickly. Choi clapped me on the shoulder, and for almost the first time refrained from sending me flying.

“Then the men will have to suffer a return to Cooky’s solo offerings for a night or two.” He grinned, and looked so perfectly handsome it seemed inconceivable that there could be anything bad in him. “For my own piggish pleasure.”

* * *

There was nothing piggish at all about Choi’s pleasure in reading: for one, it got me out of the galley. Choi could talk almost all night, occasionally darting on deck to deal with a pressing maneuver as we made our gradual way up the coast of Japan towards Hokkaido. He was so enthusiastic – almost human – that he’d sometimes bring me up during the day as well, to continue our conversations while the March winds vigorously caressed us and the crew gaped at our philosophical flights like so many lumps of clay. This had the disadvantage of making me an unwilling witness to the Wolf’s sudden outbursts of cruelty, and I think he enjoyed that I saw; for him it made a vivid counterargument to my lectures on the elevated nature of the human spirit – not to mention the concept of an eternal reward, of which he flat-out refused the possibility.

“We exercise all our power to stay atop the heap,” he reminded me; we were out on the shrouds, the thick taut ropes that helped support the masts at either side and which the sailors used as ladders, and I was trembling at the height and movement. Choi regarded them as if they were no more than stairs in a house, and lounged at his ease watching the Neukdae’s bounding progress with an approving eye. “And for what? Momentary pleasure: gluttony and ease and flashes of beauty amongst the swill. And when it’s over, when life cuts us off far easier than when she began us? That’s all – done and gone.” He stretched out a hand, observed its scars and dexterous tendons in the sunlight. “And the struggle is so sordid and the pleasures so fleeting I wonder why we even try.” There was a distinct vein of melancholy in him, I’d begun to realize: the foil to his occasional passionate outbursts, sitting either side of his usual satirical calm.

“Many thinkers have wondered the same thing,” I observed. “We generally put it down to the idea that there _is_ something beyond: something awful if we’re wicked, perhaps, but something good if we have virtue.” Almost every religion on Earth has somewhat of this notion, but I gathered he was an atheist. How very unfortunate for a man with his powers, I thought; if he’d believed in something higher, what might he have achieved!

“A very misguided idea. Not only misguided, harmful: it only makes humans struggle harder, longer; they spend their lives in pain and self-denial in anticipation of earning something better. What a waste.” Choi turned and pointed down at the starboard side of the maindeck, where the young Japanese sailor Sakurai was painting a boat; as if he’d felt his captain’s gaze he glanced up, noticed us, and glared bitterly until Jongkook shook him and brought him back to his duty. His eye was black and his face swollen, and he held himself carefully. “He’ll go for me again, soon as he has an excuse,” remarked Choi. “And he only signed on with me by mistake: he was running from the kenpeitai – stole someone’s wife’s jewelry, I gather – and he sprinted right into the tavern where I was hiring, begged for a berth if I’d just hide him. I don’t like sailing with Japanese,” he continued. “But I was short-handed.” That didn’t surprise me in the slightest. “Anyway, I thought it might be fun.” Clearly resentful of the colonization of his home island Ulleungdo, he’d probably have targeted Sakurai with his tyrannies even if the young man wasn’t so outspoken.

“Is Sakurai religious?”

“That’s the point: I don’t think he was, particularly. And he’s here because he’s a criminal. But somehow my chastising of Jongkook and a few others lit a righteous fire in that boy: more moral than any priest now – says I’ll burn in Hell and he’d like to put me there!” He chuckled. “And that fire drives him on and on, he can’t stop himself: and so he draws his own pain and suffering down. Now, if he was as certain as me of the hopelessness of it all – of a reward for goodness, and certainly of going up against _me_ – he’d be far more content.” Choi sighed and looked back out to sea. “In general I believe people are more content when they don’t think too much. Sometimes I wish I’d never learned to read.”

“Sakurai’s right, you know,” I said stubbornly, clinging on as the ship rolled. When the sweep of vertigo had passed, I added: “About virtue bringing rewards – and for wanting to believe.”

“You believe in something after death, I suppose, Dae.”

“I do. Something, I don’t know what – I’m sure I do.”

“Then why,” he asked with a curl of his lip, “do you cling and shiver and sweat on this good solid rigging?”

“I’m scared.”

“But why – if you have something better to look forward to after death? Why not let go on the next roll, take the plunge and let yourself sink?” I gulped, dizzy as I imagined it, and clung on harder. “Your body knows what’s what,” Choi proclaimed. “It knows how small and self-contained your world is, how easily the essential _you_ will be snuffed out if it doesn’t cling to life. Your body is advanced when it comes to the truth, Dae; but your mind is singularly backward.” He looked me up and down. “I wonder which will get the best of you?”

“Then _you’re_ right, if that’s the way you see it,” I gasped. “What’s the point of anything, with this nihilism pressing you down?!” That was the word for him, I thought, until he suddenly brightened.

“Speed,” he said fiercely, and shouted down an order to set the foretopsail. “My beliefs are true and black and brutal, all right – but just for a while we can outrun ‘em!” The schooner heeled a little further and her music went up a note, her bow-wave glowing white in the sun. Choi breathed deep, for this short time a part of the greater creature that was his ship; below I could see Jongkook balancing on top of a boat and laughing delightedly as he watched her bowsprit plunge.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I yelled in Choi’s direction as salt spray stung my eyes, “what _is_ the tearing hurry?! Are there not enough seals to go around?” As it happened there were not, not that year – but it seemed this wasn’t the main consideration for him.

“We press on, press on,” said Choi eagerly, “with every sail that draws.” His eyes gleamed and he broke off, momentarily alive to the fresh wind stirring his clothes and the beauty of the day; and perhaps he thought that in this instant the squalid struggle was worth it. At my questioning silence he added, in one of his strangely frank asides: “There’s someone out there I want to beat, and who it would be wiser to avoid.” He gave the horizon one of his wolfish smiles. “But if he proves unavoidable – why, Dae, then we’ll have some fun!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we're introduced to Jiyong, who displays even less good humour and charm than Seunghyun ^^;
> 
> I love tall ship sailing, out of sight of land for as long as possible! Seeing nothing but the sea and sky for weeks is literally the most transcendent thing I've ever experienced. Really changes your sense of time and how you interact with people.
> 
> Oh right, all the chapter titles for this fic are from traditional sea shanties, which were/are sung when the crew has to do a very hard physical task like weighing anchor in sync.  
> I know this is hardly my usual kind of GTOP, but let me know what you think so far :)


	2. Stormalong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Seunghyun entertains his captive with literature and arguing, while we are introduced to the master of moodiness, Kwon Jiyong.

Jiyong woke to the eternal thump and hiss of the steamer’s engine; as always it drowned out any natural sounds of sea and wind, and it was only by the particular pattern to the rocking of his bunk that he knew they were ploughing through a cross-sea, without, however, a strong breeze. From above came the odd raised voice as the mate of the watch berated a sailor in Japanese. It was neither the rocking nor the calls that had woken him, however: he’d been dreaming.

It was a familiar dream, an old dream, of a long-ago home and things and people he didn’t care to dwell on in the waking world. Back when he’d been a mere pup on his first voyage, over a decade ago now, he’d often woken with spiteful tears and an ache in his chest that pained him more than the dreams themselves. These days it was just another stitch in the canvas of his disagreeable inner life; he folded it mentally and turned over.

He was drifting when the part of him that kept a constant ear cocked became aware of some commotion above him: more raised voices, followed by something hitting one of the hidden gun ports with a resounding clang. Fishing for sharks off the side? They knew better to try _that_ on watch. Or…no, the last men who’d taken it into their heads to leave on one of the boats – they’d not risen to the job and there was no port nearby, was their excuse – were physically unable to try such capers again even had they wanted to; and surely no-one else would be fool enough to attempt it. Still, the way on the ship had slowed, he was sure of it; _something_ had happened. Conscious of the continued tension above him through a combination of senses peculiar to men who spent their life at sea, Jiyong slipped out of bed and threw on trousers – western style, not the wide-legged Japanese sailors’ pants – and a heavy woolen sweater.

“Sir!” came a voice on cue; he opened his door to one of the night watch, his bronzed face excited but wearing the usual caution at waking his captain with anything but wonderful news.

“What happened?” Jiyong heard the gravel of sleep in his own light voice, and liked the tone it gave.

“Man in the water, sir,” said the sailor. “Mr. Ueno hove to and fished him out.” Jiyong narrowed his eyes at that, but chose to wait before deciding whether the mate had overstepped his authority. He didn’t care for stops, and unless the castaway was alive and an able seaman it might be more bother than it was worth bringing him aboard. Well, it was done now and they could scarcely throw him back in – not very easily, at any rate.

“Japanese? American?” They were as yet almost a thousand nautical miles from Russian territory. Jiyong grabbed his heavy cane and the sailor hurriedly stepped aside.

“Uh…can’t tell, sir, he was just groanin’, like. But he’s not white.”

“Umph.” They exited the hatch onto the moonlit stern deck and Jiyong strode forward leisurely, cane occasionally striking the planks; he couldn’t tell what unnerved his men more, the times when they could hear him coming or when he was completely silent. Either way, the effect kept everyone on their toes and that was how he liked it. Descending the steps midships he found half the watch – minus the helmsman and lookout, who would greatly regret it if the mate caught them slacking – plus several hunters peering down with interest at a huddled figure still clinging to a stout plank of wood. It didn’t seem in any hurry to let go. “Is he alive?” inquired Jiyong quietly. The sailors shuffled off to their duties at the sound of his voice, leaving Ueno and Mizuno, one of the hunters with a smattering of medical knowledge and the closest thing they had to a doctor, attempting to revive the rescued man.

“He’s alive all right,” said Ueno. Bending closer Jiyong saw the man was shivering, or trembling with the effort of clinging to his lifeline.

“Then for fuck’s sake get him inside. Take that thing off him.” The mate tugged at the wooden life-preserver to no avail: the man was strong, then. Mizuno caught his captain’s impatient eye, shrugged, and slapped the prone figure hard across the face, again and again implacably until the rescue hacked up a quantity of water and bile and let go, scrabbling instinctively at the hand attacking him.

“Who – are – you?” demanded Ueno at an unnatural volume as the man’s bloodshot and salt-stung eyes attempted to focus. He opened his mouth, lips chafed and split from the elements, and when he spoke Jiyong was most surprised to hear not Japanese but his own language, thick and barely intelligible though it was. “One of yours, Mr. Kwon,” said the mate with equal astonishment: it was rare to find native sailors beyond the Strait of Korea, at least these days – the Japanese were jealous of their commercial territory, not to mention commandeering the best ships. The only vessel of his homeland that was known to venture this far into the East Sea was –

Jiyong smiled to himself. Perhaps not such a waste of time after all: it was common for sealing boats to go astray on the hunt and be picked up by other ships, to be returned at a later date. Maybe this unfortunate had had his boat come to grief; it was early for a sealer to be searching for hides already, but the fur seal population was thinner than it had ever been. Jiyong was hopeful he might pry some happy information out of the man – if he survived the night.

“Your name,” he ordered, as Ueno and Mizuno hauled their patient upright and frog-marched him towards the hatch. The man raised his head, gave him a bleary, searching glance, then said in a more modulated and aristocratic tone than Jiyong had heard from any man at sea:

“Dong…Youngbae.” Strength depleted after this exertion, he fainted. Jiyong made an irritable gesture and the other two dragged him inside. The captain watched them go, uncertain having heard that voice; he remained on deck until the mate returned, thinking. Well. Whoever he might turn out to be, there’d be satisfaction to be got from this man; there nearly always was.

* * *

My night as Choi’s dinner guest had stretched into several while he quizzed me on everything from Frankenstein to Freud. As he got to grips with my explanations – and he did very quickly, with what I was learning was a most remarkable mind – our question-and-answer turned into long debates over soju and whiskey; his viewpoint was so very different from mine. Sometimes I found his arguments thoroughly alien, almost inhuman; at other times they were intensely refreshing, a new outlook on the old problems I had never even begun to imagine. It was fascinating, and I must admit I enjoyed myself no end: guiding that first-rate but untrained intellect through the shoals of modern thinking – and discovering snags where he refused, even scorned, my piloting. In agreement or otherwise we talked far into the night, and by day his mood with the crew was more stable. Myungsoo was apoplectic at having to do some damn work, especially as he couldn’t bully me under Choi’s very eye, while the hunters with whom we ate were as bored and ignorant as if we’d been speaking Latin.

Tonight the air had freshened and we were sailing upwind, close-hauled for the Sugaru Strait that would take us below Hokkaido and into the Pacific for the Bering Sea. Choi was in one of his expansive moods; he was reading me Korean poetry in his cabin, something I hadn’t studied very much myself, and his overflowing energy was contained within the verses instead of spilling out in its usual dangerous way. He read very well, in fact; and I could tell he’d not only dissected the poems he selected but _felt_ them in a way many of my classmates had not. He poured me a drink and treated me to a scathing social criticism by the great exiled scholar Tasan:

“You may have grain, but nobody to eat it,  
And worry about hunger, if you have sons.  
When you’re promoted, you must become a fool,  
While the talented cannot find a place.  
A household can seldom enjoy perfect bliss,  
And the best principles always collapse.  
A miserly father has always a prodigal son  
An intelligent wife a stupid husband.  
When the moon is full, clouds often come;  
When flowers bloom, the wind often blows.  
This is the way of things.  
So I laugh by myself, but nobody knows.”

This was read with a great sense of rhythm that did nothing to soften his sarcasm.

“The old man knew what he was talking about!” Choi exclaimed with a sneer. “ _That’s_ the world for you: hunger and miserly fathers and clouds. And just when you’re living, or you think you are, something comes along to remind you the whole business is a waste of time.” He paused. “…How is it that people forget this?” he asked. “They go on imagining they deserve happiness, as if that’s the natural state of things.” He looked so genuinely puzzled I almost felt sorry for him. “And so I laugh by myself…but truly, nobody knows. Not even you, Dae.”

“You know a lot of the Chinese and Japanese poets wrote about the beauty of the world, of nature,” said I, who had little experience of stingy fathers or clouds. “Not everything is about humans; and not everything is beastly.” Choi snorted and went to his desk.

“Those soft-handed courtiers? Everything’s flowers and frailty,” he called over his shoulder, opening the drawer with a key and shielding the contents from me with his body as he rummaged. Was that where it was hidden, this treasure the sailors talked about? “Now this,” he said, extracting a dog-eared booklet and waving it, “is something new: it was only published three years ago, and by a virtual child – a Choi Namson.”

“Never heard of him.”

“There’s a bookseller near one of the docks, I forget which; I found it there.” His face, excited, reached new heights of magnetism. “It’s not remarkable in terms of craftsmanship, I suppose. But listen.” He handed me the pamphlet, obviously had it memorized; gave me an avid look, and began:

“ _Tcho---l sok, tcho---l sok, tchok, schwa---a_  
Rushing, smashing, crushing  
Hills like great mountains, rocks like houses: What are they? What are they?  
Roaring: Do you know, don’t you know, my great might?  
Rushing, smashing, crushing,  
 _Tcho---l sok, tcho---l sok, tchok, schwa---a_.”

When I had nothing to say – it was too peculiar and unlike any verse form I’d studied – Choi eyed me condescendingly.

“That’s called ‘From the Sea to a Boy’. I’ve never read anything like it! It’s pure: the ocean distilled, from its nature to its very sounds! It has no comment to make on beauty or society or ethics – only power. He reflects the fundamental essence of the sea, and in doing so he reflects myself,” he explained eagerly. He gave me a crooked smile. “Rushing, smashing, crushing – my great might.”

“It does express your view of yourself rather well,” I said drily.

“It’s the plain truth of life, Dae: there’s nothing else!” He dropped onto a bench opposite me, took a drink, throwing his experimental navigation equipment a fond look as it caught his eye. Not for the first time he seemed thoroughly absurd to me, and I beamed back at him – I’d had plenty to drink too.

“For a man who believes only in strength as the key to existence you show odd flashes of philanthropy, of aesthetics.”

“Where?” he challenged me. I nodded to his instrument.

“Your invention is exquisite; you must have a pride in its beauty as well as its utility.” He shrugged, but I could tell he liked to have his work praised. “What’ll you do with it?”

“Patent it,” he said.

“There!” I told him. “You’ll be helping – maybe saving – many a ship with that. It’s a noble act.”

“That’s not philanthropy,” he corrected me. “I’ll patent it to make a profit – for money. If I didn’t think I’d get any I’d keep the damn thing to myself! ‘Many a ship’ can run onto the rocks for all I care: more room for me.” I clicked my tongue to myself. “But the money will let me indulge in my favored brands of piggishness: books, drink, women, art…” I gave up the philanthropy angle.

“So you do love beauty – and there’s nothing wrong with wanting books and art.”

“Consuming beauty is a selfish act,” Choi told me, wagging a long finger. “Just another form of self-gratification – of hedonism. And you’re rarely thanked for it.”

“Many people believe it edifying, uplifting; a moral act in itself.” That only got me a huff of derision. Really, he was impossible! I produced sources from memory and quoted them at him for a while, but he didn’t stir from his position. After some time I found myself doubting my own arguments, as often happened when he was so immovable. I abandoned logic and blurted out what I’d been wanting to know since I met him. “…What _are_ you?! I’ve never known anyone so…” Maddening, I almost said. “What made you like this?! Or have you always been this way?” How lonely it must be, I thought privately. He looked complacent at having – so he thought – beaten me in the beauty-as-ethics debate. Then he sighed.

“I’ve no fascinating past, I can tell you that; it was merely sordid. I am what I am because it’s the only possible way I can be. But this was not something born in me at my beginning,” Choi assured me after a pause. “It grew upon me, as it were. As a child I was quite as ignorant a young bugger as you.” I ignored the insult: for any seaman it was mild, and for this one it was positively polite.

“You had morals, you mean?” I asked, leaning my chin in my hands. He smiled faintly at my persistence.

“Was I a moral being? No.” He refilled my tumbler and I began to doubt how much more I could take – the nautical man’s capacity for drink is remarkable. “That is to say, I had a strong idea of right and wrong; but even when I judged something _was_ wrong – socially wrong, you understand, in the Confucian sense – if it benefitted me I did it anyway, with no regrets. Only in those misguided years I imagined I had a loftier purpose for doing so. D’you follow?”

“You did something wrong to achieve a greater right.”

“The eternal dichotomy.” Choi snorted. “Though who can claim the prize for moral guidelines? Bentham or Kant?” The extent of his reading never ceased to amaze me, and I knew he enjoyed my surprise.

“That could turn into a lifelong argument.”

“It was one I struggled with as a boy, not knowing the first thing about either position: should I do what would bring about the most societal good? In practical terms that meant being a dutiful son, working for the honor and success of my family, my village, my country.” His expressive eyebrows twisted sarcastically. “Or should I cross every filial duty to protect the one happiness, the one bit of decency I had?”

“Which was?” I inquired; I attempted to keep my tone casual, though I was on fire to know – I’d never heard the word ‘happy’ from Choi’s lips before. But he clammed up, at least in terms of the detail I craved: anything that could at last explain him.

“I said I was a fool, didn’t I? Well, I was: my one ‘happiness’ was to care for another’s interests. And I cared _passionately_. Luckily my mind developed fast enough that I came to my senses before it scuppered me for life. And so you find me as I am: a lifeform perfectly evolved for this beastly existence.” His gesture encompassed the cabin and the wide world beyond it. Disappointed of a woman, was my instant thought – what else could have changed a young man so monstrously? When I voiced this guess Choi burst out laughing, the laughter that was invariably provoked by something awful but which was so genuine because he never bothered to hide any impulse, however rude.

“You’re on the wrong tack there, Dae…even you wouldn’t turn your entire outlook right-about for a set of skirts! …Oh, that’s good.”

“There has to be _something_ ,” I pressed in tipsy frustration – a man didn’t become like this without some catastrophic catalyst! “You’re explainable, you must be – you can’t be so different from the rest of us!” The laughter stopped as suddenly as it had begun and I saw the thunder that I so dreaded cross his face, as always filling it with life but also a grave warning. I was lucky: sometimes there was no warning at all.

“Go back to your duties, Dae,” he ordered quietly. “I’ve told you how I came to be: logic and clear thinking, that’s all. Stop prodding.” Then he yelled for the cook, who came stumbling aft – the sea was cutting up rough and the Wolf was now donning a sou’wester to go on deck. Choi informed him: “Dae’s all yours, Cooky – make up for lost time!” The look Myungsoo shot me was as delighted as it was malignant, and the hatred seethed in me for them both; I knew I was in for another little hell. Stepping out of the cabin Choi helped me vigorously on my way – but as I lay panting on my stomach it was Myungsoo’s shoe that kicked me in the ribs. I followed him back to the galley; and for the first time the idea of personal revenge seemed quite palatable to me.

* * *

Their shipwrecked rescue slept almost round the clock. Jiyong had practically forgotten about him by the time he woke up, having had a quietly furious day with one of the furnaces threatening mutiny: there hadn’t been time between the winter fishing season and the start of the sealing run in which to fully overhaul things. He cheered himself a little by mentally logging the men who were giving him sideways, doubtful looks – he would enjoy making them miserable later – and a little more by his interview with their sudden passenger.

Dong Youngbae was not a sealer, nor a whaler, and therefore absolutely useless in terms of expertise and information. He was a in fact something of a dilettante, a yangban’s second son; Jiyong speculated on his purse, which he’d instructed his mate and Mizuno to leave unmolested. He was also a missionary. That made the smaller man want to spit: his own father had converted to Christianity at the end, for all that meant. Not that Dong seemed particularly zealous just now, he was too grateful to be rescued. His ship – out of Busan, like the Fusan-Maru herself – had been bound not for Nagasaki but for a poor coastal region of Japan, where he was to furtively set about converting people; badgering them, Jiyong called it. Still, he was polite to the man, who’d been furnished with new clothes from the common store: it was amusing to play with a gentleman for a while.

“I can’t think you’d be in _such_ a hurry to reach your post,” he said over soju at the captain’s table. “Those villages on the West coast, their patois is barely intelligible – half my crew can’t understand ‘em. Barbarous.” Dong looked rather blue at that, then set about chastising himself.

“Duty…you know,” he muttered, nose in his cup. He brightened a little. “But of course, it might be inconvenient for you to put me ashore there.” Jiyong rolled his eyes inwardly. “Nagasaki, on the other hand…” Was a whoremonger’s paradise, as Jiyong knew very well: a stop of any duration there and a quarter of his men would come back diseased with another quarter run off or arrested for bad behavior. “It might be quicker anyway,” said the young man, as if he had the slightest idea where they were. “And I can guarantee more profitable for _you_.”

“How profitable?” asked Jiyong, eyes narrowed: it was worth knowing what Dong was carrying. Dong appraised him for a moment, which Jiyong found mildly amusing – it would take a smarter man than this wealthy puppy to get a read of him. He saw the bigger man’s eyes come to rest on his scar.

“Five hundred yen. In notes and silver.” A high starting mark for haggling. Interesting.

“For Nagasaki? It’s astern already; and I’m in a hurry to reach the hunting grounds.”

“Then anywhere,” said Dong gallantly. So that was honestly all he had on him. Well, it was triple what Jiyong had in his own purse right now. He smiled, the smile that people who didn’t know him thought charming, and gave a respectful nod to the owner of so much cash.

“All right, sir. You take some more rest. I’ll check my charts and we’ll see what’s most convenient presently.” Dong gave him a wide, ingenuous smile of his own: he certainly had the naivety of a missionary. Jiyong ordered hot food and a man to look after Dong’s needs, and took himself off to exhort the boilermen. Only when he was safe in the deafening engine room did he let himself laugh.

* * *

They’d been sailing quite close in with the Japanese coast so far. Now Jiyong altered course, not enough to lose time but sufficient to sink the land – enough that if Dong looked out to sea he would have no idea where they were. Of course Jiyong wasn’t about to double back for Nagasaki, and he had small intention of putting in anywhere at all: he always lost hands if they docked during the season, some men would rather forfeit their wages altogether than put up with his discipline. Besides, Jiyong wanted to have Dong around; he had no interest in the man’s conversation, god forbid his conversion attempts – but it would keep him entertained all the same.

As befitted a cultured and wealthy passenger, Dong ate his meals with the captain. As a polite young man he attempted to make these occasions pleasant; but Jiyong was quite aware that he puzzled and unnerved the preacher. Dong seemed too mannered to ask again when Jiyong would put him ashore – it had been two days now and he was quite recovered. Jiyong thought he was a fool. What did Dong make of _him_? he wondered idly; he frequently caught the bigger man glancing at his scar, at the cane he always carried. What did he think it was? A war wound, an accident at sea? It was fun to make him nervous. Jiyong didn’t much care what he did with himself the rest of the time, so long as he didn’t make trouble; Ueno was keeping an eye on him, leaving Jiyong to return to the engine problem. The boiler was repaired now but they’d lost some speed for a while and he had four men in sickbay: two who’d been burned fixing the damn thing, and one, who’d complained of the danger of working on it at sea, with…related injuries.

Jiyong picked up his cane, ran his thumb across its heavy, scarred head, and went on deck to surveil the rest of his people. They required it constantly, not because they were bad seamen but because some of them tended to smart under a Korean captain, and if he wasn’t vigilant they’d stir up trouble in the ship. Jiyong had heard his crew, under his personal brand of captaining, described as ‘the unfortunate man who has an abusive wife’. While he wouldn’t speak to the accuracy of that, Jiyong hadn’t liked the analogy – and the sailor who’d made it had found out very quickly and personally just how abusive that could be. He was the fourth man in sickbay, and if he left it again this voyage Jiyong would be quite surprised. It had certainly quieted the rest of the crew, as did the rumor of the pistol their captain wore at his back.

As he emerged on the raised bridge he found the deck indeed quiet – but not silent. He heard the two men before he caught sight of them. They were beneath him, sheltered under the bridge railing. It was a fine evening and several of the watch below were on deck idling, but Jiyong’s nature was to be small and silent and as yet his appearance had gone unnoticed. It took a moment for him to register that the men were speaking his own language – he’d grown so used to Japanese, day in, day out, always groping for nuance. There were very few of his countrymen aboard; although he preferred to hire them, his reputation among the locals in Busan meant they were not particularly keen to sail with him. Not that it mattered, he thought, listening attentively; Japan or Joseon or the few down-on-their-luck Americans, his crew was good for one thing only: bagging the highest profits in the fleet. And, of course, helping Jiyong harry _him_ …

He broke off from this last thought as he heard one of the voices say:

“Viper? It hardly suits him – such a fair little thing. Other than the scar.” It was a clear, well-modulated voice, free from the habitual wariness his crews soon learned to display. Dong, Jiyong decided, over his weakness now he’d had a few nights’ sleep and hot meals. His lips thinned at the newcomer’s words of faint praise: he’d grown tired of those particular insults before he could write his own name. “What’s his real name?” continued Dong, as if he could hear his thoughts. “In hanja, I mean?”

“Can’t read hanja, sir,” came the second man’s voice in a hushed tone. The cook’s mate Chae, perhaps, Jiyong had sent him to see to Dong’s needs that first night. “But I heard tell part of it means ‘dragon’.” Above them and still unseen, Jiyong gave the plume of smoke emanating from the stack a sour look. His family name – his father’s name – meant ‘authority’, though as far as he was concerned the man had failed to wield it with anything but dumb force. His personal name, ‘will of the dragon’, was nearer the mark: a _strong_ name, and he had become strong, if not in the way the other animals in his family had. Jiyong rather liked ‘dragon’, so it was a pity the spiteful nickname given him by his sailors had stuck.

“I’m sure he’d prefer dragon,” said Dong Youngbae naively.

“Not that we call him anything to his face but ‘sir’,” replied the sailor in a quelling tone. “And if you know what’s good for you, sir, you’ll be as careful!”

“…Perhaps there’s something in what you say.” The landsman sounded thoughtful now. Jiyong wondered if he’d have the nerve to come and ask again about being put ashore, and when. He had been remarkably patient; did he still think they were beating back for Nagasaki? There’d been some satisfaction in hedging him on the destination, though there would be as much pleasure in seeing it dawn on that guileless face what sort of captain he was dealing with. “Still – Viper?”

“He’s too small to call a dragon.” A stifled laugh from below, and Jiyong felt his own face grow pale with fury, the long scar on his left cheek even more vivid. “But he’s mean enough for a snake – a viper’ll bite ya and you’ll never see it comin’.”

“Oh,” said Dong pensively. “But he was so obliging about agreeing to put me ashore.” There was a pause, and in it Jiyong stepped out with his cane into the late sunlight of the bridge. A boat-puller up for’ard noticed him first, and the usual ripple of tension spread across the deck before the men returned to their work. At the edge of the ripple two faces emerged from beneath the railing to peep up at him: one cautious – Dong Youngbae – the other ashen. Jiyong met their eyes and smiled.

* * *

“Where’s the man I was talking to?” inquired Dong at breakfast the next morning. “The Korean.” Jiyong took another bite of rice, and considered.

“Serving up the hunters’ meal, I imagine.”

“I checked the galley,” the younger man persisted, as if that wasn’t a total breach of manners in another man’s ship. “The cook wouldn’t tell me anything.” Jiyong sighed, and held an inward colloquy as to whether it was too early in the morning for this: the sky was ugly today and he could smell another blow coming on that would put them before the wind in the direction of the Bering Sea. The wind made small difference to a ship under steam; a lucky day for a schooner, though. Jiyong was not inclined to wish for anything that brought another sealer luck, much less the few remaining sailing vessels, one of which –

“…Well?” he said softly; the man was giving him an insistent stare.

“Where is he?”

“In his bunk,” Jiyong announced, deciding it was not too early for a confrontation after all. “And if he’s able to leave it again this month then he has an unholy amount of luck.”

“He was _right_ ,” he heard Dong mutter under his breath. “What did you do to him?!” Jiyong glanced at his cane leaning against the table: he had no need of an aid for walking but he’d never say it was useless – the grip was filled with lead.

“If you go around asking you’ll likely find out.” The man _was_ intelligent: Jiyong saw the barbed caution hit home, saw Dong’s eyes open wide. Ahh, it was pleasant – pleasant to really be seen! He was all for stealth, with his build he had no other choice if he wanted to move through the world as he pleased; but it was the sweetest thing, the moment when other men finally understood what they were dealing with! He smiled, the first genuine instance of it he could recall for weeks, not even hating just then how _pretty_ it made him look; that didn’t matter, not when he’d succeeded so well in making this Christian afraid.

“…Are you like this with all your men?” Dong asked quietly. His hands were shaking a little, in fear or anger; he placed them under the table. “Or just us Koreans?”

“I’m unbiased,” Jiyong told him coolly, although if you examined the numbers he was probably rougher with the Japanese crew: he’d work for their companies, sail their ships, but their nation was still trying to control him and he hated it. The Koreans were terrified of him before they even boarded, while the one or two Americans often seemed almost fond of him – until Jiyong showed them by example why they should be afraid for their hulking great carcasses: he didn’t care to be patronized. But by and large both sets of men were well-behaved. It was the imperialist hounds that needed to be taught by force. Dong was wearing an expression of deep worry and sadness.

“If I ask you something, will you tell me the truth?”

“Perhaps. Depends what it is.” Jiyong tended to think of the truth as a subjective quality; he saw no advantage in being straightforward.

“Are you going to let me off this ship?”

“Oh.” He smiled again. “No, I don’t think so.” He saw Dong clench his fists under the table: frustration or a misguided preparation for violence? He’d love to hit out, Jiyong decided, but he wouldn’t, not yet: he was still enough of a missionary man to hold back. “We’re almost past the mainland now anyway,” Jiyong informed him. “We’ll be crossing under Hokkaido but there’s no time to land. And from there to the open sea.”

“How long?” asked Dong tightly.

“Two, three months. As long as it takes to get there, fill our hold and get back. Of course,” he continued slyly, “it’d maybe go quicker if you’d care to go a-hunting with us.”

“Work for you?” cried the younger man before quickly controlling himself. “No, thank you; I won’t be part of a pointless slaughter.”

“Pointless to you,” corrected Jiyong with good cheer. “Gold for me.” He supposed Dong would disdain him even more for being mercenary. “But if you don’t want to make yourself useful, Mr. Dong…” His captive sighed heavily.

“You’ll be keeping my money.”

“Yes, indeed. And I’ll thank you to stay out of my men’s way for the duration – unless you’d prefer more of them end up like your friend. And who knows, maybe you’ll learn something about life!” Dong regarded him with his lips set thin and disgusted. Jiyong didn’t mind: he enjoyed wielding power over the muscular meat-heads of his crew; now here was an opportunity to make this aristocratic and moral young man feel his authority too. And Dong’s distress and lack of resistance pleased him very much.

“You’re the Devil himself,” said Dong in a low voice. Jiyong beamed.

* * *

“Sir,” I panted, knocking at Choi’s cabin door before throwing it open in my passionate haste, “things are really getting im-”

“ _Out_!!” In the space of a second I saw the whole cabin: Choi at his desk shoving something violently under a pile of charts, his turn towards me as he leapt from his chair. Before I knew it he was on me, a giant bound to strike me in the chest and send me flying back from the doorway into a bulkhead; between the staggering impact to both my back and front the wind left me and I wheezed for breath. Choi followed up by pinning me there with an elbow across my throat. Terrified, I met his eyes and quickly looked away: you would never dream the man behind those eyes could read a book, let alone attack me with philosophy.

“S…!” I tried to apologize but there wasn’t enough air. Choi glared down at me, teeth bared; then he relaxed a fraction and let me drag in a breath.

“Dae. What’s the rule about my cabin?” I couldn’t speak, only gasped at him. “If the door’s shut you don’t come in,” he reminded me. I nodded frantically; out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple of hunters and Myungsoo appear, drawn by the crash. They were watching us cautiously, waiting for more entertainment. Choi seemed to be done, however: the fire retreated from his eyes and he lifted me by the scruff of the neck and set me back on my feet. “Try not to encourage me, Dae,” he said, brushing me off and patting my shoulder. “I don’t wish you any ill will, you know.”

“…Sorry, sir!” I managed at last. Disappointed of his fun, Myungsoo skulked off; he’d be even worse when I got back, I thought. Choi returned to his cabin.

“Just…take care,” he advised, before shutting the door firmly. I sank back against the bulkhead and frantically felt myself all over for fractured bones, still wheezing and half amazed to be alive. It was only later, when I was stirring Myungsoo’s horrible soup in great pain and had leisure to think again, that I decided it must be true: Choi _was_ keeping something in there. His one and only secret – I wondered what it was.

The next day I climbed aching and trembling into the shrouds and clung there, too frightened to get all the way to the foretop – the precarious platform at which the foremast and its topmast were joined – where Choi sat eating a dried persimmon and regarding the Neukdae’s jib. The first mate, Tak, who was apparently trying his best to become an embryo version of Choi in terms of brutality and bad moods, jeered at me all the way up; but when I was as high as I could go Choi peered over the top and gave me an equable nod. My mental anxiety faded slightly, leaving my body to its own terror of the heights.

“Conquering your fear?” he inquired.

“Not really, sir!” He sighed.

“Oh, well. What’s up, Dae?” So I told him what I’d been trying to tell him yesterday.

“Working under Myungsoo is becoming _impossible_.” An involuntary grimace crossed my features at the very thought of him now: my hatred of him was even hotter than my hatred for the Wolf, though it burned with a grubbier flame. Choi took another bite of fruit and regarded me silently. Slightly encouraged, I went on: “He trips me, hits me, insults me in every possible way – constantly, every day!”

“He does have a remarkably inventive fund of nastiness,” Choi commented. While I thought he must despise Myungsoo himself – his own remarkable qualities practically ensured it – he didn’t _sound_ like he did.

“But the other thing is that he’s getting dirtier and dirtier, and his cooking for the crew’s getting worse – at least when he doesn’t make _me_ do it – and he tells them it’s my doing!” I’d been receiving some pressing complaints from the compartment where the sailors berthed, and as the food got worse they were threatening to become physical. Myungsoo by himself was bad enough – he still had his knife. I simply couldn’t handle an attack from a hungry, furious, muscular sailor as well. Choi tilted his head to the side with a faint smile.

“You’re angry, Dae.”

“Yes! Sir.”

“Planning to do anything about it?”

“There’s nothing I can do: he has a knife. And anyway…” I wanted to say something about the indecency of a gentleman striking such a poor low creature as Myungsoo, but I refrained: at this point even I didn’t believe that.

“What will it take?” wondered Choi aloud. “How much longer until you exert some power – your real power, not this imagined class superiority?”

“…I don’t know.” I knew that every day I was coming closer to it; and that was another thing that scared me.

“D’you think Cooky’s trying to _make_ you snap?” he inquired, sitting at his ease while the schooner pitched and I wound myself closer into the ratlines. I shrugged. “It would be very interesting to see how he’d take it if you did.” He sounded encouraging. “You might be pleasantly surprised – and you might get your money back.”

“So you won’t do anything, sir; even for the men’s health?”

“Certainly not,” said Choi. “This could be a key step in your evolution, my boy. And if you do manage it – why, I’ll promote you to cook!” My heart sank, though I wasn’t really surprised. Laboriously I began my slow climb down, which was worse than going up. I saw Choi step out, grab hold of a backstay, and shoot hand over hand down the taut rope to the deck. He joined the mate for a quick laugh at me, then strode away. And I couldn’t help feeling that he was right: I wasn’t evolving at all.

* * *

“Don’t you worry about it, mate,” said Jongkook kindly, his huge form looming in the narrow entrance of the forepeak. I’d escaped to this storeroom, full of ropes and sailcloth and blocks, after very nearly being crucified during the sailors’ dinner over a fish stew that was unquestionably rancid – Myungsoo again. “We know whose fault it is.”

“That won’t stop them mauling me,” I replied miserably, after a moment. He climbed in and took a perch on a wooden chest opposite me.

“If it was me,” advised Jongkook, “I’d give that Cooky a thump alongside the ear.” I observed his huge fists and biceps, which for the most part sat mild and unthreatening, and nodded enviously.

“I would if he didn’t have the only decent knife in the galley – and if he wasn’t my _boss_.”

“That man’s a scrub.” He sounded so earnest, he always did. “Boss or not, if he’s doing wrong by you he deserves it.”

“You would say that,” I told him, and he smiled bashfully at my tone of warm admiration. “You’re almost the only man on board brave enough to stand up to the Captain. Well, you and Sakurai.” And from what Choi had told me Sakurai was no paragon of virtue – he attacked the Wolf because his burning hatred meant he couldn’t help himself. Jongkook, I thought, was different.

“He’s a monster,” announced Jongkook, though in a low voice. “I never saw such a man. And when I see what he does to other men, to you and that boy – I have to say something. It’s only right, I _have_ to.” He looked around him. “He doesn’t deserve this pretty ship. Sealers, whalers, they’re supposed to be run democratic: discipline, of course, but the trip is a _communal effort_. Choi doesn’t know what that means!”

“You’re not a man who looks for trouble in the normal course of things,” I supposed. Jongkook shook his head.

“I try and hold back with him, too.” His face in the lantern-light was somber. “I know what’ll happen if I don’t – what might happen if I keep on.”

“That’s wise,” I assured him, and found my own morals had grown, if not elastic, then _pragmatic_ since I’d met Choi. I wanted to live uninjured, and I wanted the same for this honest young giant.

“Only sometimes I can’t help it.”

“Believe me, I do know the feeling.”

“I just wanted to say,” he went on, his low-burning cheer returning, “that most of us crew don’t have anythin’ against you, Dae.” And from him I found the informal name companionable, reassuring – a sign of fellowship in this dismal vessel. I smiled. “You’ll settle Myungsoo,” he predicted. “‘Til then, keep your spirits up.”

He left the way he had come. I sat there a little longer, strangely moved. A kind word, a gesture of good faith from a peasant; in my old life – it seemed years and years past! – I would never have predicted such a thing would be my only comfort, or that I would so esteem the man who’d said it. Perhaps I _was_ evolving after all.

* * *

As much as I was disgusted by Choi’s continued refusal to help me and his behavior towards Jongkook and Sakurai, I found myself unable to avoid him. Part of this was duty: I still had to serve him and clean his cabin, so naturally he could pin me with a word whenever he was bored and force me to verbally spar with him. Part of it was my eagerness to escape Myungsoo’s petty tyranny and the unsavory confines of the galley. But part of it, and no small part, was that I didn’t _want_ to. I was drawn to the older man with a kind of horrified fascination, born from my conviction that he was a human absolutely unique; unique to my experience, anyway. So almost daily I would find myself gauging his mood, and if it was level I’d hope for some conversation; and despite his obvious disdain for my moral parts I thought Choi quite looked forward to it too.

“Coffee, sir!” I bawled out over the bowsprit, the long protruding spar of wood at the front of the ship upon which the Neukdae’s headsails were set. We’d had a peculiar swirling wind last night that boxed the compass – and threw me out of bed – and part of the lifesaving netting beneath the bowsprit had been torn away by a flying object; Choi was out there now with the bosun and a couple of men, knotting and splicing. He wasn’t paying attention to the work but was standing upon the bowsprit gazing out to sea, moving unconsciously with the pitch. He heard me and turned: perfect balance.

“Now this is getting along, eh!” he called, stepping towards me around the staysail. He leaned on one side of the railing and I leaned on the other to keep from spilling the hot drink on the sloping deck. He gestured with pleasure at the blue dome above us and the white-flecked sea below. “Nine knots in this breeze; how she does love a blow.”

“Is everyone all right, sir? After the storm?”

“Storm?” said Choi with a huff of laughter. “You haven’t seen a storm yet, Dae, though I can almost promise you shall.”

“And how long now ‘til we reach the hunting grounds?”

“It depends, as usual. Two weeks or a little more, I should think.”

“So long,” I muttered gloomily. Two more weeks until they even began what they’d come to do?! Two more weeks of no distractions and Myungsoo…

“Long?” said Choi. “Not at all, we’re doing very well.” And then, dropping his voice: “…And if the wind holds and we keep on this line we’ll maybe beat her.” He spoke as if to himself, great eyes far-off and intent.

“Who, sir?” I asked to regain his notice, motioning with the coffee-pot again. Choi absently climbed inboard and accepted a tin mug of the stuff, took a swig of it without blowing – how it would have scalded me! – then said with relish:

“The Fusan-Maru: Japanese steam sealer out of Busan.” I reflected: when the wind was right we’d overtaken one or two other sealers already, heading in the same direction, and other than some faint catcalling on the part of our crew the one time we passed within earshot I couldn’t recall any great rejoicing. Then again, I’d probably been trapped below deck and under Myungsoo’s unsanitary thumb at the time.

“Is it very hard for a schooner to catch a steam ship?”

“Sometimes I think you’re more ignorant than you were the day I dragged you aboard,” said Choi with a grunt. “It depends, of course: we have to consider a whole heap of things – wind and sails and tide – and adjust ourselves to a nicety.” His expressive lips took a scornful cast. “A steamer simply chugs away, polluting everything in sight.”

“Will you teach me sometime, sir?” I ventured. “About sailing, I mean.” There were no books on the subject in Choi’s cabin; evidently it was an art he’d learned through long practice. But if I could show him I truly wanted to learn something new it might please him – and, above all, get me out of that god-damned galley. The subject didn’t matter: I’d have studied embroidery if it would help keep Myungsoo at a distance.

“Initiative, Dae!” he replied sardonically. “You _are_ coming on, after all. No. I don’t have the patience: I’d knock you into the scuppers after one watch. You’ll have to ask one of the men; and you’ll have to pay him.”

“How?! Myungsoo – _Mr. Park_ , damn him – stole all my money!” _As you know perfectly well_ , I added silently. Choi looked entertained.

“A dilemma.” I gave up.

“What about this Fusan-Maru, anyway?” I asked somewhat sulkily. He seemed to like it when I allowed my good breeding to slip. “Is it just because she’s Japanese?”

“No.” His eyes were on the horizon again, searching, hunting. His lips had thinned, jaw squared and more sculptural than ever. “It’s because of her small-minded, petty, spiteful and loathsome excuse for a captain.” I stared at him, startled: Choi was rarely so passionate about anything he wasn’t currently beating into the deck or reciting from his books. Perhaps this other captain had stolen the enviable command of the as-yet unseen steamer from under him: speed and capacity meant profit, after all, and it was clear modern technology had the advantage. And Choi cared for profit as much as he seemed to care for anything. Or perhaps his hatred was simply a whim – you could never tell with him, at least I couldn’t.

“Your rival?” I guessed. Choi clutched the tin mug so hard in that powerful hand I could almost see the dents. His glare pierced the far-off cloudbank, as if his personal will could part it and show him what he wished to see. He spat, then shook his head.

“My brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And before my regular readers say "Oh, going back to _that_ well, is she?", they're not blood related XD.
> 
> In the novel, Wolf's brother 'Death' doesn't get a POV; in fact he's only mentioned a couple of times. So Jiyong is mostly based on the Tim Roth character in the drama version.
> 
> Anyway, here we get the original Wolf's surprising taste for literature. Obviously I'm not an expert on Korean poetry, but I read an interesting paper on their poetic styles of the 19th and 20th centuries and thought these two would appeal to this version of Seunghyun in particular.
> 
> Additional note: In this chapter I had occasion to write 'Dong' and 'seamen' about five times each. And I laughed and laughed...


	3. Pay Me My Money Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which all our boys experience the various consequences of losing their temper...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a heads-up, this is a rather violent chapter (because book). Just FYI.

“…Your brother,” I echoed. Yet another astonishment to add to the pile! I stared at the older man, imagining a second version of him and fighting an urge to stand there with my mouth open: this Choi was unlikely enough, the idea of _two_ of them was unbelievable. The captain threw a look towards the workers on the bowsprit, but with the wind and the flap of sails his low voice gave us relative privacy.

“Kwon Jiyong, skipper of that Japanese belcher the Fusan-Maru: Viper, they call him.” Choi spared a complacent glance for his own ship. “I think I prefer Wolf.”

“But I thought the men said -”

“That I have no family,” Choi finished for me. “He’d certainly agree with that.” His tone was no longer intense, merely sour. “And it’s more or less right: I was adopted – there’s no blood between us.” His mouth twisted wryly. “Or only bad blood, at any rate.” Now the different surnames made sense, as did the whole situation: sibling rivalry could be painful enough when there were few resources to spare, and if there were no biological ties resentment was bound to happen. On one side or the other.

“I imagine it’s not easy,” I said vaguely, “being the younger brother.” Of course he’d want to chase this Viper.

“No.” The Neukdae heeled as the wind freshened and I clapped on to the rail. Choi’s lips curled up, a barely visible smile. “I’d say he doesn’t care for it at all. And this season I’ll make him like it even less.” Then _Kwon_ was the younger! The dynamic grew more unusual; I badly wanted to quiz him about it – perhaps this would finally explain why Choi was the way he was. As far as I knew the man had no other tie whatsoever in this world: a brother, even an estranged adoptive one, was a significant discovery. But before I could dare he gave another one-shouldered shrug as if the topic wasn’t worth the bother any longer, and handed me the coffee mug to go about his business. And something about the set of his head told me further inquiries would not be welcome.

I sighed to myself; I would have to get my answers from ship gossip instead. None of the crew had a lot of time for me since Myungsoo told them it was me poisoning them with the cooking; the hunters valued me even less. Persuasion would be necessary, then, and somehow I’d need to pay for it. Scowling over the bows in my best impression of our captain, I determined that I had to get my money back from Myungsoo.

* * *

When Jiyong woke in the night this time it was to a storm – and another dream. Both tended to increase upon him as the Fusan-Maru headed into the Pacific each year. He sat up in his bunk, which was swinging eccentrically on its gimbals, and dragged both hands down his face. His scar was aching as it sometimes did in bad weather, though that might also be the aftermath of the dream. It had been one of the worst, a dream of the long-ago night he’d received that wound; and while he did not regret those terrible events the memory was still inexpressibly painful to him.

He climbed out of bed without any of the lingering sadness such dreams had prompted in his youth; instead his mood was as thunderous as the storm breaking overhead. And some bastard had let the hatchway stand open and there was water all over the floor. Dragging on a tarpaulin coat and hat Jiyong stalked down the wildly plunging passageway, cane in hand.

“…Is this the end?!” cried a voice, and turning he saw Dong’s door swinging ajar, the younger man clinging to its frame with both hands. “My cabin’s awash!”

“No, Mr. Dong,” Jiyong replied blackly. “I’m sorry to say it isn’t.” Salt water rushed down the ladder from another stray wave, and the landsman gawked at him. Jiyong tied his waterproof hat tighter beneath his chin and splashed on. “But if you feel the end is nigh perhaps you should pray! I’m sure your Lord will console you.” He swarmed up the stern-ladder and left Dong to his unhelpful terrors.

He’d been right: the hatch was unfastened. Exploding from it wrathfully he found a heavy sea, a rough blow, and thunder tearing overhead. There was no undue chaos, however, only what was to be expected at this time of year.

“Batten down that fucking hatch, you addlebrained sod!” he screamed over the storm as a hunter staggered by – all hands had been called already, then. Good. The man turned to curse at him, the hunters being a proud bunch, touchy of their position; then saw who it was and ran to obey. In another minute the hole was covered with a tarpaulin and the hatch screwed down, but that wouldn’t mop Jiyong’s floor, now would it? Jiyong went to check on the men at the wheel: two reliable seamen guiding her carefully over the crest of the huge waves and down, down into the troughs. It was a delicate business for all the strength required; if she broached, turned broadside to the waves, and one of them came over her she could founder. For now she was running, running before the wind. Jiyong was staring through the horizontal rain for Ueno so he could bawl him out about the open hatch; he spotted him in the waist with the bosun, rigging lifelines for the men to cling to as they crossed the deck: it was the lowest point above water in ordinary times, and right now it was _under_ water with each wave that broke across it. This was soon done efficiently and Ueno clambered up to join him, streaming from every garment.

“All hands accounted for, sir,” he yelled with a gasp for breath. Jiyong decided he would forgive his first mate his momentary lapse: the man was a thorough sailor and was the only one attached enough to him to have signed on again after his first season.

“Set the foresail,” Jiyong ordered instead, over the constant scream of the wind. “Let’s help her steer a bit easier!” Under Ueno’s directions the triangular sail rose up, two reefs taken in to reduce the spread of canvas: the wind was strong enough that too much would harm rather than help her. The Fusan-Maru steered more smoothly now, and once a sense of order was restored Jiyong sent the watch below provisionally back to bed – this time closing the hatches down tight. He and Ueno remained on deck, huddled in the lee of the bridge. Jiyong liked nights like this, when the outside world matched his inner one. “The missionary thinks it’s the End of Days,” he told the mate drily. Ueno snorted, but looked pleased at the remark: Jiyong was not a chatty captain.

“Wait ‘til he sees a real blow.” He shrugged his collar higher as lightning struck the ship’s rail and sizzled some of her paintwork. “Still, I daresay it’s a brisk enough night if you’re under sail, sir.” He glanced at Jiyong, who narrowed his eyes and tried to decide if this was unpardonable familiarity: Ueno was observant, it seemed, and either knew or had guessed the significance of what Jiyong spent his runs through the North Pacific looking for.

“Go and fetch me a snack,” Jiyong said icily. The Japanese mate looked for one second as though he was about to bridle – it was an ignominious task and not part of his duty, and they both knew it. Then Ueno shrugged, tugged his hood up, and headed obediently for the hatch.

Jiyong stayed where he was, watching the sky boil and hating everyone on board.

The storm had passed by morning though the high seas remained, a long, smooth swell that the Fusan-Maru breasted like a sturdy pony. Still, they’d had a rough old night of it, and after Jiyong had collapsed in his bunk for a few hours – his floor having been assiduously flogged dry – he emerged to find the crew relieved but sleepy and surly, with one or two bad sprains who’d had to join Dong’s loud-mouthed friend in the makeshift infirmary, and Dong himself on deck. The young man seemed bamboozled that they were still afloat; Jiyong could see him talking and laughing giddily with some of the morning watch, whose sulky faces cleared at his naïve delight in having been saved. _If he’s telling them to thank Jesus instead of my good sailing_ , thought Jiyong to himself, _I may break his teeth as a remedy_.

“Go below and help Mizuno with his fractures,” he instructed Dong; the sailors slunk off looking anxious and vaguely mutinous. Wonderful. “Unless that sort of thing is beneath you.”

“I’ve got basic first-aid knowledge,” said Dong. “I was just telling them-”

“I know what you were telling them, and you can just stop it. Leave my men be!” A shade of anger crossed the bigger man’s usually diplomatic features.

“When we get back from this miserable trip my father’s going to hear quite a tale!” Jiyong stared at him, a long, slow stare that gave him plenty of time to think about what might happen on a dangerous voyage to people who said things like that. Dong went red.

“You forget,” was all Jiyong said, however. “This is a Japanese ship, a Japanese venture, and a Japanese trading company. I’m sure your father did very well lording it over people like me during the Empire.” He sneered. “But I wish you luck making a dent in me now!” Youngbae paused, huffed, and stomped down the companionway on very creditable sea legs. Jiyong shut his eyes for a moment and reined in his temper, then went to frighten his discontented crew. He didn’t like them, didn’t like their rulers; but on days like this he was glad to be a little unpatriotic in his employment practices.

Jiyong had learned Japanese as best he could from the interlopers – lately reclassified as legal settlers – on Ulleungdo. It would have incensed his father had he known, which was as good a reason as any to do it. He’d improved his skills aboard Japanese fishing vessels, at a menial, cramped station in the galley where his small stature was an advantage and a lack of brute strength didn’t matter too much. All the same it had been hellish during those years, young and fair and foreign as he was, but he’d bided his time – and stuck his revenge to anyone he’d been able to sneak up on. Besides, hadn’t it been worth the pain? He’d picked up the language and habits well enough that he’d eventually managed to talk his way into a position on a whaler, and later on one of the Japanese sealing steamers that vied with the Americans and Russians in the Bering Sea. He’d been silent and unobtrusive and attentive, working his way up the line of responsibility through manipulation and charm in place of force; and when the time came he had used all that careful learning to undercut his competition and prove himself an attractive – because cheap – proposition to a small Japanese maritime company, and so had secured his first command. Now five years on here he was, and so long as the Fusan-Maru had water under her keel no man aboard would _dare_ cross him. Power and freedom: Jiyong loved them above all things.

He was fairly sure this Dong Youngbae, this newcomer, would love to cross him – together with the majority of his crew. But like those foreign beasts Youngbae had the unconscious wisdom of animal instinct; and, _un_ like most of them, some actual intelligence: wealth and privilege or not, thus far he’d largely been smart enough to keep his lip buttoned on the subject of Jiyong’s character. Jiyong supposed it would be easier all round if he kept on doing so, though he’d take equal pleasure in teaching Dong what real Hellfire was if he didn’t. As far as Jiyong was concerned, however, these petty victories could go hang when they reached their destination: all that would matter, once on the hunt, was wiping the sea floor with the bastard he used to call his brother.

* * *

I had survived my first storm in a schooner, though at the time I found it hard to believe. After that night-long howl of shattering wind, with the middle of the Neukdae underwater and her deep-sea anchor so disfigured by a freak bolt of lightning as to be unrecognizable, the clear skies that followed felt like a dream. I’d spent the morning below, having been forbidden the deck in the dark as a danger to myself and others, and with the aid of one of Choi’s medical books I’d done my best to patch up the burns, sprains, and lesions that had been caused during our thorough shaking. So when I came on deck to find the world turned blue with an extraordinary purity of vision and the Neukdae gushing water from her scuppers I stood blinking about me like an idiot.

“Wasn’t so bad,” grunted Sakurai, who was re-lashing the boats and boasted another hideous blackened eye and temple – he wouldn’t tell me how he came by it, just glowered aft at Choi, who was steering.

“The boy is quite right,” Choi agreed when I’d made my way back to check the validity of this statement. He looked exhausted but almost merry: I assumed wrestling the furious Earth had put him in a good mood. “We only caught the tail of it, thanks to our cracking on. Anyone South of us would’ve had a pretty lively night, though. How’s everyone?” he asked as an afterthought. “Not too many broken bones?”

“None, I don’t think.”

“Good: we’ll need every hand able once we get there. So if there _were_ I’d have broken some more for ‘em!” He laughed that genuine laugh and I shivered. “All right, Dae, you can get back to your duties; Cooky must be in a right taking what with you playing Doctor.”

“You want coffee, I suppose, sir?” I said dolefully: back to the Black Hole for me.

“Yes, yes, hot and hot! And something to eat.” Choi gazed up at the clear turquoise sky, grinning at having mastered it. “Bring it up, will you? I want to enjoy this before I drop from the heights.” I withdrew while he was still smiling, and privately braced myself for his fall from this glorious but short-lived emotional altitude; though I wished I knew more precisely what was coming.

Myungsoo’s temper had not been sweetened by being rattled around like a dried pea all night, the coppers and stores in the galley all ahoo and no Daesung to clear them up! He tried to trip me as I was grinding the coffee beans, but I caught myself and stood there glaring at him as malevolently as he ever had at me. Now was as good a time as any, I decided: after last night’s nautical terrors I thought it even more important that I learn the basics of handling a ship, in case – god forbid – there was ever a _real_ emergency, such as Choi being thrown overboard by his long-suffering crew.

“Myungsoo,” I began.

“Mr. Park.” He made an ostentatious move towards his knife. I rolled my eyes.

“ _Mr. Park_ , if you want me to keep taking the blame for your cookery, I want my money back. You’ve had long enough.” Myungsoo started – it had been weeks since I’d accused him of stealing from me and I suppose he thought he was so terrifying I’d accepted it. Well, not anymore: the money was morally mine and I didn’t think I’d be going too far wrong to try and compel him to return it.

“How’re you gonna make me give it?” he asked, tiny eyes squinting at me suspiciously: frisking me visually for a weapon. When he saw I was unarmed he leered at me. “You can come it as high as you like, laddo – without the Wolf behind you you’re all talk.”

I let out a dramatic sigh at that, as if to acknowledge my helplessness, and carried on making the coffee: a double portion today. Myungsoo watched me narrowly as I filled the pot, but seeing my hands full got on with setting the galley to rights and preparing the unfortunate crew’s dinner. Balancing myself for the roll of the ship I set off. I had to pass behind him, the galley being so cramped; as I did so I tripped – like he’d tried to trip me – and piping hot coffee cascaded across his arm. He screamed like a rabbit and in that instant I jumped on him, pinning him to the scarred bench with my weight, which had been gradually increasing under my routine of manual labor and stodgy food.

“Whoops,” I growled in his ear, struggling to hold him there – he was slippery as a fish and smelled worse. With one hand I fought him off while with the other I began the abominable process of patting him down. He was howling and I was panting; he threw his head back, hitting me in the jaw, and as we flailed there like so many flounder his hand seized upon the knife at the end of the bench. I made a desperate grab for it, smashing his head back down with my left hand; he cried out and before I knew it a fiery sensation shot through my right arm, and looking down wildly I saw he had cut me! Naturally I was off him in a second, leaping clear in a spatter of blood from a long gash in my forearm. Myungsoo gaped at it in what seemed utter shock – looked to the knife, now red and slick – and assumed a strange expression I didn’t care for at all.

“Who’s bein’ murdered?!” an enthusiastic voice cried at this point, and before either of us could really make sense of what had happened or what we ought to do about it now, half the watch below piled in.

“Finally havin’ a go, Dae!” someone yelled encouragingly, while other voices were goading Myungsoo. We stood there panting, both vaguely appalled; Myungsoo was looking at his hand as if it might belong to someone else, while I contemplated my own spilled blood and wondering why I hadn’t fainted. Then Jongkook and an old, alcoholic but reliable sailor named Song elbowed their way through and forcibly separated us to either side of the galley. At this the other men grew bored and ordered Myungsoo to clean the damn knife and get on with dinner. Jongkook led me away, washed my arm and bandaged it under directions from Choi’s book – a shallow wound, luckily; then returned me to the galley just long enough to collect the captain’s belated coffee and stagger up on deck.

“And what have you been at, my lad?” demanded Choi, still on his tearing high but growing fractious at the lack of breakfast. “I seemed to hear a stuck pig downstairs a little while ago.”

“That was Myungsoo.” At least I hoped it was, although I couldn’t be sure in the heat of the scuffle what noises I might have made. Choi nodded, and gave my injured arm a pleased look.

“A fortnight ago you’d have been sobbing and indignant at his violence.” I wasn’t sure about sobbing, but I took the point.

“I’m still indignant, sir.” He smiled as he sipped his coffee; he wasn’t going to do a thing about it. “And I still don’t have my money!”

“No,” said Choi, rewarding my loss of pacifism with a slap on the back that made me reel. “But it was a decent first salvo. Oh, what a day!”

* * *

After that, sharing a workspace with Myungsoo became not only infuriating but truly unnerving. I was certain that in the moment he cut me the little man had been horrified; I don’t think he had really believed he’d ever do it. But it seemed he had been thinking on it: when I returned to the galley, for Choi of course wouldn’t let me shirk my duties for a mere homicidal cook, I found him with a new expression – guarded but irrepressibly pleased. The knife was safely at his side, and now he watched me; all day long he watched me.

I was further thrown when later that evening, as we were making all shipshape after the captain’s supper and squaring down for the morning, Choi ducked his head and crammed his considerable height into the galley. After a supercilious look he ignored me, and instead began to chaff Myungsoo about his ‘victory’: a bloody affair! Brave, even; had he fought before? He asked to see the knife, admired it and advised a keener edge. I retreated to my tiny bunk; Myungsoo didn’t even notice and Choi didn’t care, and I could still hear perfectly well. Under the captain’s compliments Myungsoo began to bloom in a particularly greasy way: prating and servile, but quite willing to accept the Wolf’s assurance that he had shown remarkable pluck.

“I shall have to promote you to hunter before long,” said Choi with a chuckle, and I could practically hear Myungsoo’s opinion of himself being molded under the man’s targeted praise. It was a fairly unsubtle business, but it niggled at me: first of all was the matter of _why_ he was doing it – I didn’t trust Choi as far as I could throw him, which was nowhere – and second: had he been doing the same thing to me? Where else would I have got the stones to finally attack Myungsoo?

The massaging of the cook’s ego went on another two days: frequent visits to the galley, an invitation on deck to look at a right-whale’s spout, and a constant air of familiarity. Myungsoo’s head had swelled so far I thought – and hoped – it might burst. The hunters, a deeply stupid body of men for the most part, were confused at the spectacle; though Sakurai, Jongkook, and a few other sailors were watching the performance with great suspicion. None of them had any love for Myungsoo, of course; but they didn’t trust Choi.

On the third evening I had cleaned up and turned in when I was roused from my cot by the captain’s shout for more liquor. I sighed – he had the key anyway and the storeroom was close by – but went to fetch it. I discovered him still at the table where he ate with the hunters; and I was almost unsurprised to see Myungsoo sitting opposite him. They were playing cards: poker.

“Here,” ordered Choi, waving the key at me. “Whiskey.” Myungsoo aimed a foolish, complacent smile in my direction; I gave them both a blank look but went and fetched a bottle. As the captain poured for him I could tell Myungsoo was drunk already: slumped on the bench, holding his cards an inch from his face, which even I, who had nothing to do with the game, could read. “Stay put, Dae,” Choi told me. “We’ll want some more presently.”

As the game went on I noticed that although Choi was drinking he poured a double measure for Myungsoo every time. And yet the smaller man was winning; insignificant amounts for the most part, the kind of money all the sailors played with. But it crept up. After I’d brought a second bottle I stepped closer to view their cards, and having a sober head I realized immediately that Choi was letting Myungsoo win; was counting cards with a blithe disregard for secrecy; and that Myungsoo was too stupid to notice. The amount increased, and though he was still winning I could see an anxiousness growing in the vinous depths of the cook’s stare: this must be all the money he’d brought with him. Then Choi smiled, and laid down his hand. Myungsoo went gray.

“Mine, I believe,” said Choi easily, and scooped the yen bills and coins into his hat.

“Wait, wait, wait,” exclaimed Myungsoo in a panic; his voice was slurring. “You have to gimme my revenge, skipper!”

“With what?” inquired Choi.

“I got money! I’m a saver, I am – a rich man, practic’ly a gentleman!” Myungsoo extricated himself from the seat, which was no elegant sight, and ran off with a lolloping gait down the passage. Choi said nothing, just set the hat on the table and gave me an expectant look. The older man was breathing heavily as he came back, and I gathered he hadn’t been keeping my money on him; he must have squirrelled it away somewhere. All that brawling for nothing, I thought crossly.

Choi dealt the cards and they began to play again, Myungsoo’s hands trembling, the Wolf calmly watching him. The pile of money on the table grew: I was counting it as it went down, until at last Myungsoo threw in his final coin with an expression of physical pain: a thousand yen from him, which was coincidentally the very amount I’d been carrying; and a thousand from Choi. A fortune to Myungsoo – even I was holding my breath. The final reveal of the cards, and Myungsoo let out a sodden howl before collapsing over the table and bursting into tears. I stared at him, vaguely dismayed, but Choi gave him a solid kick.

“To bed, Cooky! And mend your thieving ways.” Myungsoo sniffed piteously, gathered himself, and limped away a broken creature; Choi had fetched him a crack on the ankle. I could hear him cursing and sobbing all the way to the galley, and I began to feel sorry for him. My natural though less commendable feelings reasserted themselves presently, however, and I looked to Choi, who was making neat piles of notes and coins in front of him. “How much was it?” he asked without any sign of levity.

“A thousand.”

“Exactly what he brought,” he agreed. Now it was my turn to look expectant: I was convinced that this was a reward for my show of beastliness the other day, for finally unleashing my resentment at Myungsoo. Choi merely nodded. “Well. Goodnight, Dae; I trust you’ll continue progressing.”

“But…” I said without thinking.

“Hmm?” The money went back in the hat, and mine with it. I met Choi’s eyes, saw that his downswing following the storm was likely to take the form of a black mood rather than a blue one, and shut my lip up tight. He waved me off absently, chin in his hand; but one eye watched me, glinting, as I stumped away as ignominiously as Myungsoo.

* * *

I might have been forgiven for thinking this was the end of the matter. Not that Choi had any more moral right to my money than Myungsoo; by this time, however, I’d accepted that ordinary human decency would not affect our captain in the slightest and that I should never get it back. I growled to myself, was morose, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. How nice it would be if Myungsoo would accept his drubbing as philosophically! But when I roused myself out of bed at dawn he was late to his work; and when he at last appeared – having left the entire making of breakfast to me – his mousy unshaved features wore an expression of loathing.

“Now you know how it feels to be robbed,” I said with a certain dog-in-the-manger sensation. Myungsoo stared at me; and I suddenly knew life below decks was about to get far, far worse.

“He tricked me,” muttered the cook without taking his eyes off me. “But it’s your fault. An’ I’ll pay you out for it: sooner or later, sooner or later.”

I left him to take Choi his coffee, not without a shiver: there was something in that look, not merely an increase in malignancy and bitterness but a spark of conviction that there was something he could do about it.

“Hullo, Dae,” Choi greeted me quietly when I’d located him by the foremast. After his increase in riches last night he seemed low, and I knew the drop in spirits was gaining upon him. I related what his gaming had done for galley relations; he nodded. “Of course he’d take it out on you. What’s the alternative? Me?” At that I had to laugh, and even Choi smiled: it was clear to me, Myungsoo, and every other living creature on the Neukdae down to its rats that Choi as an object of revenge was so far above Myungsoo as to be practically celestial.

When I returned to my station I discovered what form this revenge was likely to take. Myungsoo had his knife in hand – my arm smarted at the memory. He’d also found a whetstone and was sharpening it. I glared at him, but I must have turned pale because he smiled an ugly smile and continued. I went to clean Choi’s cabin, and when I got back it was the same, the grating _swish-swish_ and the smile.

Myungsoo left off long enough to cook meals and whine about how cruelly he had been used all his life, which was no doubt true; but afterwards, all day long and the next, he sharpened that knife. Presumably he stopped to sleep, though I could never find the knife; and the next day it began again. He would pause periodically and test the long blade on a vegetable or piece of fish, later ostentatiously shaving the hair off the back of his hand to show me just how sharp it was. I got very little sleep the rest of that week.

While all this was going on Choi’s reaction to his tearing spirits during the storm hit. I’d predicted either a black mood or a case of the blues; what I hadn’t expected was that he’d have them both at once, or how awful the combination might be. Choi began finding fault with his crew even more frequently than usual. The sailing since the storm had been sweet, with never a crisis, but that didn’t stop him spotting mistakes and doling out punishment to the most inoffensive sailors in the form of tirades, punches, and blows with a rope’s end. What was different this time was that his depression had fallen so deeply upon him that he delegated most of this to Tak, and the first mate took it up with relish, Choi watching with a twist to his mouth that suggested the sight made him even more depressed.

He didn’t stop it even so, and after a few days I no longer felt safe on deck: half the sailors and a hunter were sporting injuries – two had been dragged unconscious for me to patch up as best I could – and even the second mate looked at Choi and Tak as if he wished the pair of them would fall dead on the spot. The Neukdae was becoming more than dangerous: what seamen call a ‘hell-ship’. I found myself in a particularly awful position, trapped between what was happening on deck and what was being threatened in the galley: Myungsoo’s whetting was constant, even taking to following me around while he did it. Of course the sailors noticed, and it was a mark of their own state of mind when several of them urged me darkly to ‘just kill him’. With the threat of violence on all sides I judged it would be better to get armed, if only for self-defense; but how?

* * *

Jiyong had dismantled his pistol, a small Type Nambu, and was cleaning it at his desk – the saltwater atmosphere meant it needed frequent maintenance, and he wanted to have it ready and to hand at any time. While it was thus out of commission he substituted it with a knife in his belt; his men were either burly or wiry and always discontented, and Jiyong believed in evening the odds. He was cleaning out the pistol’s bore – he should have the ship’s guns overhauled too, he might be needing to threaten someone with them soon – when there came a knock at his door and a panting sailor put his head round it.

“Sir, there’s a schooner off our larboard quarter.”

“Tell Mr. Ueno I’ll be up,” Jiyong said casually. The sound of booted feet retreated. Jiyong put the pistol down and waited approximately a minute; by then his excited hands had stopped shivering and he could stroll over to the mate on deck without any appearance of hurry.

“Just there,” Ueno told him, pointing. “Hull down as yet, sir.” Jiyong gave him a cool nod and raised his binoculars. It was a grey day but clear enough beneath the clouds, and he soon had her in his sights: a flash of sails, then gone, then there again. He could feel Ueno darting glances at him as he watched the strange ship, small and indistinct in his glass. Was his first mate simply trying to please him, or was he trying to work out why Jiyong was always so very interested in finding Choi? Jiyong disapproved of either sentiment, so he sent Ueno about his business with a clipped word and kept watching.

For a minute he thought she might be steering a course to meet him: briefly she was hull-up, a dark speck against the horizon. He felt a clutch of fierce anticipation in his chest, and though unbeknownst to him he smiled; not a pleasant smile, and the hands nearby noted it. Then the sun came out, the air suddenly clearer still, and he saw immediately that she was a simple fore-and-aft schooner – no topsail yard – and that she was in fact not coming closer but had worn and was dwindling. He lowered his binoculars crossly, all that feeling sinking away: it wasn’t the Neukdae. Jiyong turned, and after a critical glance around his own deck went below; he was disappointed, and the blow he gave with his cane to a boat-puller slow to get out of the way had no real heart in it.

Back to his cabin. Jiyong reassembled his gun and tucked it away safely at his back, then spread out the chart. If Choi was in front of him after the storm and the changeable winds they’d had the past few weeks he would be doing very, very well; it was also possible that he was lagging behind, if he’d had to put to sea late or if something had gone wrong aboard such as his crew jumping him in his sleep – and well deserved if they did, thought Jiyong. But Choi had never beaten him to the sealing grounds before and it was much more likely that the Neukdae was here, somewhere in these waters. Jiyong should be able to feel her if she was: he imagined his own cold hatred as a compass. He sighed and set the chart aside; there was no telling with ships under sail, nature was too unreliable, and guessing didn’t make him feel any better.

He sat there gazing darkly at his doorway, so that when the next sailor appeared he saw the man physically flinch back upon meeting his eyes.

“Sir,” said the man, dropping his gaze. “The, uh…the passenger sent to tell you: Chae Jiho is dead.” Jiyong gave him a lizard-like blink, then remembered: the cook’s mate – Dong’s friend. He felt a falling sensation in his chest and was unsure what it meant, but it spurred him to his feet; pushing past the sailor he made his way down to the compartment just abaft the forecastle that housed anyone who got themselves injured. When he arrived he found the other patients had cleared out, either from respect for the dead or fear of their captain’s reaction; and the only men there were Mizuno scratching his head, Dong Youngbae with his eyes closed and hands clasped in front of him, and the corpse. Jiyong looked at his countryman lying there, and for the moment identified the feeling in his chest as anger.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“Not exactly sure,” said Mizuno. “We were treating his, er, breaks, and they seemed to be coming along; storm didn’t help, of course, sir. I reckon it was the bump on the head: I didn’t think it looked serious, but just a little while ago he woke up talking funny, then convulsing…and while we were trying to hold him down he just…went.” Bleeding on the brain, guessed Jiyong, who hadn’t hit him in the head _that_ hard – or so he had thought. Or maybe a splinter of bone working its way in as he was jostled about in the storm. It was so hard to tell with head wounds, wasn’t it. And now they’d never know.

“…It was you,” said Dong slowly, raising his head and opening his eyes to reveal red rims. “You happened. You killed him.”

“I would have thought,” retorted Jiyong, feeling giddy, “that goes without saying.” Dong looked at him in lethargic disbelief, as if Jiyong’s awfulness was too much to even comment on. Mizuno, who had heard of Kwon the Viper before joining the ship and obviously didn’t give much thought to lowly Korean sailors in any case, shrugged.

“All right,” said Jiyong through his teeth, “wrap him up. We’ll bury him at sea when the watch changes: all hands.”

“I want to read the service,” Dong murmured.

“Was he a Christian?”

“…No. But-”

“Then no.” Jiyong experienced a tiny flash of satisfaction at the look on the missionary’s face. “It’s my job anyway.”

The crew stood in its usual lopsided heaps – both watches and the idlers – and listened to the funeral. They were perturbed, Jiyong could tell; but only a few were seriously, perhaps mutinously, angry. The rest were no doubt afraid of the same thing happening to them. Other than concern for their own hides, however, their lamenting was academic; that was the Japanese for you. If it had been one of their own Jiyong might have needed to take measures to bring them back in line. As it was they watched silently while the formal farewell was said and Chae dropped overboard with weights at his feet, gone forever.

Dong looked wounded at the stark brevity of Jiyong’s ‘we commit his body to the deep’ – the younger man could see him praying by himself – but didn’t venture any more remarks to the captain that day. He seemed too full of righteous disgust to speak to him at all, for which Jiyong was grateful; his chest was still burning with several mixed feelings. Chae had served as a good example of what Jiyong was capable of doing, another story to add to the Viper’s reputation; and he’d insulted Jiyong foolishly. But he was a Korean… Jiyong wished it had been one of the others, and on top of the disappointment with the schooner it caused the most grinding displeasure in his belly. Guilt? Perhaps; he didn’t think so. Apprehension? Maybe a little, though once they reached the Bering Sea and the hunt was on all this was likely to be forgotten. Ultimately Jiyong decided that what he was feeling was _pique_. He retired to his cabin, shut the door, and put his head in his hands.

* * *

It was thanks to Choi’s current spell of beastliness that I came by my weapon at last. The day before he been answered back to by one of the hands, normally a quiet man but battered enough by Tak’s rope and his tyranny that he’d been unable to keep his mouth shut. Choi’s present mood was so glumly savage that – from what I heard later, being below at the time – he’d given the man a verbal raking, with such foul-mouthed and incisive comments upon his skills, his person, and his entire lineage that the poor seaman had been left quivering with rage and let fly with his own curses. Not a punch had been thrown, just a knock-down drag-out war of words delivered in bellows at point-blank range. The sailor, once he’d yelled himself out, seemed to realize what he’d done in his moment of weakness, and had apologized to his captain; not with the most grace, perhaps, but enough to restore peace. Choi had listened, nodded, then gestured to the first mate.

“A dip.” Before the sailor could blink he was grabbed and a rope made fast beneath his arms; then with his huge strength Choi dragged him aft and threw him struggling over the rail. The Wolf made the end of the long rope fast to a stanchion and stood watching.

I was on deck by this time, the cries of protest having called me away from Myungsoo’s ominous whetting. The Neukdae was going well enough, perhaps seven knots, and the man was soon left astern – then the rope around his ribs jerked him violently and I saw a white line of water as the schooner began to tug him along. The sailor, a middle-aged man, was flailing, and would have been yelling had his mouth not filled with water every time he opened it. I had discovered to my surprise that many seamen couldn’t swim; apparently he was one of them. It looked hideous and even I, who’d spent more than a day in the water, couldn’t imagine how it felt to be towed thus: like drowning by inches.

Choi wasn’t smiling but was regarding the offender with his arms folded and a neutral expression.

“Watch him wallow, Dae,” he said quietly, catching my dismayed exclamation. “The desperate struggle: that’s the very image of life.”

“You’ve made your point, sir! Stop it!” He didn’t answer. It had been several minutes now; behind me an unhappy but strong and dutiful voice added:

“That’s long enough, sir. Bring him in or I will.” Jongkook: his tone told me that he knew the risk he was taking. Choi turned and gave him a long and level look, as if to suggest that he try it. I was both hopeful and terrified he would. Then:

“Just another moment,” said Choi as Jongkook strode forward. I wondered _why_ – he was clearly getting little enjoyment out of it, and the ship wasn’t so crowded that experienced hands could be easily spared. At last he moved languidly for the rope. As he did so I heard a voice from the mainmast yell down:

“ _Shark_!! Shark on the starboard quarter!” We all whipped round, and shading my eyes I saw it: one of the white shadows that occasionally cruised behind the Neukdae for scraps; some of the sailors were fishermen and would always try to catch them. This one was probably eight feet long, that slim fin prompting a kind of primal terror in me. Definitely in the man in the water; he had heard the shout even if he couldn’t see the predator, and was screaming and kicking.

The moment he heard the warning Choi leapt to the stern railing and grabbed the rope, beginning to haul upon it vigorously and draw its certain victim – if he kept up that helpless commotion – out of harm’s way. But it was a long rope. I saw Jongkook join him at a run, bringing his enormous biceps to bear, and together they dragged the sailor tearing along towards the schooner. My heart, which was in my mouth, was about to return to its proper position when there was a loud, piercing, wet scream – and then blood in the water. The two powerful men tugged with a final heroic effort and the sailor rose from the sea, the shark rising with him as its jaws clamped down on his leg. A uniform gasp of horror: it thrashed, gnashed, and fell away, and as Choi and Jongkook heaved the man inboard I saw his left foot was gone.

My former self would have fainted. As it was I suppressed the urge to vomit and dashed for the spot on deck, the spreading red pool, where the man lay in Jongkook’s arms.

“I need a belt!” I shouted at the white-faced sailors, and there was Choi, whipping off his wide leather one as he strode past. What with trying to still the injured man and pulling the belt tight around his leg before he died of blood loss – Jongkook’s muscles managed the tourniquet admirably – I didn’t notice Choi dart below decks. Seconds later he was back with one of the hunters’ rifles and running to the stern railing: the shark was still there, dropping behind but hoping for more treats. Choi settled the butt of the gun comfortably in his armpit, aimed without apparent haste, and fired twice. A bloodthirsty rumble from the crew told me he’d hit home. Later I took a moment to feel a little sorry for the unsuspecting shark, which after all had been doing what came naturally and never dreamed it would one day go up against a wolf.

“Bring him down,” Choi ordered to Jongkook. “Come on, Dae.” The sailor and I somehow carried the victim down the ladder and set him on the dinner table. Choi followed, wisely hanging on to the rifle: the hands’ ugly pleasure in the shark’s demise was likely to direct itself towards him if he wasn’t careful.

Feeling as if this were a particularly gruesome species of dream – I got those often now – I grabbed the medical supplies and cut away the seaman’s loose trousers to the thigh, almost threw up again, but set out what the book said I would need to cauterize and sew up the wound. Choi roared at Myungsoo to fire up the galley stove and bring boiling water, then force-fed the fainting patient with whiskey until I was ready.

“ _Are_ you ready?” asked Choi, looking at me steadily. He sounded urgent but almost encouraging. I gazed down at the bleeding stump and at my meager tools and inexperienced hands. Then I nodded.

I did it. Only time would tell how successful it would be, shock or gangrene might carry him off any time in the next twelve hours to twelve days; I hoped the copious amounts of liquor – poured into both him and myself for fortitude – and his near stupor might help with the first, my obsessive sterilizations the second. Once I had finished Choi and Jongkook stopped holding the man down – he was unconscious anyway – and shook my bloody hand. The young sailor went off to hang a cot somewhere quiet, with fresh air, or as near as could be attained in the Neukdae. Choi and I stood watching the undeserving victim of his whim.

“If I’d known about the shark,” Choi remarked softly, “I’d never have thrown him in.” His handsome face looked…not remorseful, but somber. “I wouldn’t have had that happen for the world.” I slumped down on the bench.

“If you hadn’t lost your temper so far as to be utterly careless of his life,” I said, exhausted and trembling in the aftermath, “it wouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t lose my temper: I knew exactly what I was doing.” I groaned and picked up the whiskey bottle: how tempting it was to smash his head in with it! “I just didn’t have all the facts to hand.”

“Well I hope it may profit you, sir,” I told him bitterly instead.

“I tell you what,” he said, sitting down beside me, “if he pulls through it’ll be thanks to your care. So when he’s healed up I’ll make _him_ cook’s mate: he can’t be expected to stand a watch anymore. The bosun will fix him up some crutches; and I’ll think about finding you something else to do.” He gave me a close look. “So perhaps it’ll profit you more than I.” He left me to see to my patient; I sat murmuring comforting nothings to the unfortunate creature, cooling his head with a damp cloth, and felt within me all the crushing guilt Choi could not.

* * *

The man survived the night, as did Choi – both veritable miracles, what with my amateur skills and the crew’s current mood. And the upshot of it all was another piece of profit for me. I’d been excused galley duty the next day – Myungsoo might sit sharpening his knife as long as he liked – in order to care for the patient, who was taking his grievous injury with a stoicism I’d found common to sailors when it came to physical wounds. So there was nothing to stop me going on deck to breathe some fresh air and clear the smell of sickbay from my nostrils.

I was strolling in the cool sunshine a few yards behind Choi, who wasn’t in a talkative frame of mind, when a lightning-swift movement caught my eye: a huge grey hornet, it looked like, or one of the many seabirds, until the object whistled across the deck and buried itself in the foremast – less than a foot behind Choi’s head. He didn’t see it, although he heard its thwack; but I did. It was a marlinspike, a wicked steel mariner’s tool, and I whirled to follow its line of flight back to its source; and there I found Sakurai, his face contorted in absolute hatred and disappointment. We looked each other in the eye, appalled for a fraction of a second, and by then the captain had turned and yanked the marlinspike out of the wood by main force, leaving a hole an inch deep. He too followed its line, but now there was no-one at the other end, just a group of sailors suspiciously busy on the shrouds or in the maintop. Choi turned back and looked at me closely. I spread my hands in a helpless gesture and he tilted his head; I think he knew I knew. We stood there some little while, the tension between us and the unknown assailant wound to such a pitch I felt my throat constricting. Ought I to tell? Would he punish every man here if he couldn’t ferret out the culprit? However:

“Leave my god-damned mast be, you sods!” Choi announced in his deep, massive voice to the ship at large. He tipped me a worryingly humorous glance, left the weapon sitting atop the galley roof, and walked aft, straight and unafraid.

No-one ever claimed that marlinspike; no-one dared. But later that night Sakurai crept into the curtained-off area where I was sitting with my patient – still alive – and crouched at my elbow.

“Thanks, mate,” he murmured. “…I couldn’t help myself, not after that.” He nodded to the sleeping man. I gave him a weak smile, and he drew something from within his hessian shirt and pressed it into my hand. I looked: it was a short knife, a dirk, with a leather sheath. “That’s for Cooky if he plays ya any more tricks,” the Japanese sailor whispered. “Or…whoever.”

It was a kindly gesture, as kind in its way as Jongkook’s words of encouragement in the forepeak had been. I wasn’t sure if Sakurai trusted me and this was a simple thank-you, or if the knife was a bribe for my silence; but with the atmosphere aboard the Neukdae now what it was, I was very glad to have it.

* * *

And now that I had a weapon in my hand I found I was no longer afraid of Myungsoo. Academically, perhaps I was: my mind would step in every few minutes and remind me that the cook was sly and quick, and his small size might count against me if we came to blows in a cramped space – and that I might at the last minute be hampered by my morals. But my body was having none of this, and when I met Myungsoo in the morning I did not tremble. The minute he produced his kitchen knife and whetstone I smiled at him; from across the cabin I did the same. The dirk Sakurai had given me was sharp enough, but that wasn’t the point; the point was the way Myungsoo’s rodent-like features changed as I began a steady _whick-whick_ with my new blade.

Myungsoo didn’t ask where I got it; in fact he didn’t comment at all. Yet his eyes were fixed on it, his hands continuing their own sharpening by rote as he stared at it, the steel dull in the low galley light.

“…Make the breakfast,” he ordered, still staring.

“Yes _sir_.” I put the immense pot of rice to boil and fetched the fish and vegetables for soup. Myungsoo relaxed a little while I was about these tasks, but when I picked up the dirk and began chopping he seized up again. It was the wrong type of knife for cutting food and the vegetable chunks were rather hacked about. Still, I sliced with enthusiasm, as if the radishes had been Myungsoo’s head.

Breakfast over I saw to my other duties then returned to the galley and my whetting, and my adversary returned to his. How deranged we looked I can only imagine, squatting in our respective corners and stropping our already razor-sharp weapons. It appeared, however, that derangement was the best entertainment our crew could hope to get of an April morning, and everyone without pressing duties would at some point pass by the galley to goggle at us. The hunters found the sight highly amusing, though by now I could have cut the tension even had my knife been blunt.

“You could scalp ‘im with that thing,” called one of them. I wasn’t sure to which of us he was referring, but advice of the kind came thick and fast. The time went by in fits and starts; obscurely I was aware it was dinnertime – I heard a few voices complaining – but others told them to hush, this was as good as a play. It was about this time that Choi, who I’m sure had got wind of our conflict hours ago but had now grown peckish, came down to see what was happening. His voice was the only thing that could draw my attention from Myungsoo, and even then just for a moment: he was watching with interest, standing in the entrance to the galley with one forearm braced on the doorframe above his head. Looking at him, his supreme nonchalance added to his immense abilities, I spent a minute wishing I was him – a wish that would have been impossible three weeks ago.

“Song,” I heard Choi order the older sailor – my eyes were back on Myungsoo’s knife – “just make some rice-balls, will you? I’d hate to interrupt the spectacle.” Song scuttled past him into the galley, giving us both an old-fashioned look and sidling round to throw together the snack. Neither of us cared.

By nightfall we were still at it and I knew by now we looked ridiculous – I _felt_ ridiculous. Maybe we were both cowards at bottom, or maybe we simply didn’t have the experience at making the first move. Or perhaps I really _was_ what I’d always told myself: a good man. I was getting tired but the atmosphere was still electric between our blades, and now it did seem down to which of us had preserved his moral backbone enough to hold out after this endless day. Choi put his head in every so often; he was still somewhat low, I thought, and the sight that might have amused him in a different mood seemed to mildly disgust him. After another hour I realized that neither Myungsoo nor I wanted to be the one to call it a night; so I made myself do it.

“…Tomorrow,” I told him, pointing the dirk at him. “After breakfast duty.” Myungsoo smirked: I’d been the first to call it quits.

“All right,” he said smugly. I was the first to leave the galley; I waited round the corner to see if he’d play any tricks. After a few minutes I heard him pull back the sailcloth curtain and climb into his bunk. Instead of settling into my own cramped bed I felt my way through the dark below decks and curled up beneath a blanket in the makeshift infirmary, dirk tied safely at my waist.

I woke up; not to a sound, it seemed to me, but to a waft of air: was my patient up and moving? Before I had time to blink, however, a weight crashed on top of me in the darkness – a weight that seemed all knees and elbows – and I heard a fervent cursing in my ear. Myungsoo, my mind supplied as it sprang into wakefulness, and he hadn’t meant to wake me: he’d tripped. His snarl sounded frightened. There wasn’t enough light to see by so I stifled my own cry, which would have told him how I lay; instead I bucked hugely beneath him while scrabbling at my side for my knife. It was still unfamiliar to me and wouldn’t come free from its sheath, and all the while Myungsoo was growling and gibbering at me. I twisted, trying to evade his grip; a thunk and scrape just by my shoulder-blade told me where his knife had stabbed into the boards, missing me by an inch.

Grabbing at where I judged his wrist would be I missed; but it took him a moment to yank the knife out and on my second flail I caught him, trying to pin his weapon hand while I whipped my own free of its sheath at last. He must have heard it, or heard my relieved gasp, because he writhed aside and I stabbed at empty air. One flailing knee caught me hard in the liver and I swore, wheezing with pain. Myungsoo took the opportunity to grab my arm in turn, hissing and spitting on top of me, and all I could think was that I had to keep his knife hand immobilized. Neither of us could inflict any lethal damage like this – and that was what it had come to now, I was convinced of it – so we wrestled, ignominiously enough but for the absolute life-or-death nature of it.

“Hoy there, what’s all this?” came a sleepy voice from the cot slung close by: my patient, woken by our animalistic grunts and scuffles. “…Dark as the devil’s arse in here,” he muttered, and I had just enough time to congratulate myself that he was lucid before Myungsoo attempted to kick me in the groin. I roared, gathered myself, and somehow got on top of him, reversing our positions. “Hey!!” the one-legged sailor bawled out at the top of his voice, “light along a lamp, ‘ere! Got a dog fight in the dark!” The far-off sound of complaints, some voices shouting at him to shut his hatch, others asking what the fuck was happening?

A hand groped cautiously down from the bunk and touched my head; or at least that was what I realized a moment after I’d jumped and screamed. The hand drew back with a curse of surprise, and in my second of distraction my grip slipped on Myungsoo’s always greasy wrist. No triumphant noise made he, just a vicious slash that caused my ear to explode with fire and then go numb. Blooded and unthinking I struck out at his knife arm wildly, knocked it aside, then pummeled him in the face in the dark until his grip wavered on my own arm. As soon as it did so I shook free. Myungsoo writhed again beneath me and managed to buck me off, fighting for his life as he’d never before, and before he could come at me again I stabbed downward. For a second I wasn’t sure if I’d hit anything: he made no sound and continued to struggle. Then a thin keening noise came from beside me; I fumbled down, felt the hilt of my knife, and my hand came away wet.

“Myungsoo,” I said hoarsely; he didn’t answer and the noise didn’t stop. The floor was heaving, rolling; it took a minute to understand this was not my own giddiness or nausea but the ship’s motion: there must be a sea getting up. Above us the sailor was asking what had happened, who we were. He sounded frightened enough, in all conscience – we might have been ghosts for all he could see. But here came a bobbing, wavering beam of light. I watched it move up the wall, dim and smoky as if it were Myungsoo’s own soul. Then I turned, panting like a dog and lips curled back from my teeth, and saw Choi in the doorway, regarding my disorder as I’d regarded his the first day we met. He looked as if he wanted to sigh; then he smiled, full force, white teeth and all.

“Is he dead?” he asked, hanging the lamp from one of the hooks suspending the cot and crouching beside me, pushing me off – not roughly. I blinked: the cabin in the flickering light had assumed the look of a ghastly Gothic painting, the bewildered footless sailor on one side, Myungsoo on the floor, his shirt black with blood, and Choi’s imposing figure kneeling above him like Death itself. Choi ripped the shirt aside, inspected the wound with the dirk still in it, and told Myungsoo to hush: he was still wailing.

“ _Will_ he die?” I asked, finally beginning to tremble, caught between a fierce animal triumph and the full force of what I, Kang Daesung, had done.

“Perhaps not, if you missed the vital organs.” Choi gazed up at me and I gazed back down at him, my eyes wide and his dark and pleased. “Get your instruments and the book; I’ll shift him to the table. But I’d hurry, Dae: whether life or death, it’ll be by _your_ hand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to veer off from the book, although the main Wolf-related events are basically the same; only in the book it was Cooky who got his foot bitten off.  
> Next chapter Daesung gets some gossip about his captain's past...
> 
> Also, next time Daesung is going to experience some sailing-related terror (thanks to Seunghyun, of course). 
> 
> To get into the atmosphere of being a sailor on a tall ship generally, I highly recommend the unique 30-minute documentary ["Around Cape Horn"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tuTKhqWZso&list=LL15CHhzAsDaQgEeLPZhEwOw&index=5&t=0s) on YouTube. The footage was filmed by an 18-year-old farm boy in 1929! He loved Jack London's novels and was desperate to be a sailor, so he joined one of the last huge square-rigger cargo ships sailing from Europe to Chile, and he took a huge old movie camera with him and filmed _everything_ , up masts, during record-breaking storms, the whole voyage! It's truly extraordinary to see; the film is in the British Museum now.  
> He eventually became a captain, and 50 years later he narrated the video footage and told his story; he has a great old-man storytelling voice, and you can also get a view of how they viewed life even then: how they had no safety regulations, how they'd get hit with a rope by the captain and bitten by his dog, how two men drowned on the voyage...he's so casual about all of it, and you can tell he loved it - the genuine passion for pure sail.
> 
> Anyway, give it a watch and see you next week!


	4. Blow The Man Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daesung has another scary formative experience, while Seunghyun's crew decide enough is enough - but can they do anything about it?

The morning after our knife-fight Myungsoo was still alive – and noisy, far noisier than his companion in sickbay, who was suddenly eager to be up and about whatever work his new crutches would allow. I wasn’t at all confident about the cook’s wound, a nasty stab in his side that I worried might have grazed a kidney; but I had truly done everything within my amateur power to mend the mess I’d made. His crying was awful: he had become subservient to me again under my needle and thread, begging me to save him, and at times that night in the increasingly frolicsome ship I almost wished I’d killed him outright.

My footless patient – Ham, he reminded me his name was – had hobbled to the galley with one of his mates to help him on the Neukdae’s heavier plunges, and had contrived to make Choi’s coffee all by himself. Briefly I wondered if he’d poisoned it; it must have been tempting. Still, I took it very kindly in him and promised to deliver it to the captain without spills.

“Ah, young Triumph!” called Choi upon catching sight of me. I carried the coffee pot over the rolling deck without any mishaps; it came quite naturally to me now. In fact, other than my deep mental struggles about enthusiastically trying to murder and then having to save Myungsoo, I had rarely felt fitter. Choi accepted the coffee with a smile and nodded to the first mate, who yelled over the wind:

“Foretopsail halyards, haul away! Brace! Sheet home!” The long horizontal yard from which the topsail hung rose to its precarious position, and having loosened the sail from the yard the hands pulled its lower corners in tight; there was a sensible increase in speed as well as plunging, and spray white as the tower of canvas tore across the deck into Choi’s upturned face.

“I’m just trying her with it,” he told me conversationally, taking a sip. “What a joy it is, this speed! But if the breeze gets up any more I doubt she’ll bear it.” The bosun, doing something essential in the waist, nodded vehemently, but Choi laughed as the wind blew and I knew he was over his doldrum – that his dark mood had flowed away with the sight of my knife in Myungsoo. “How’s the patient?” he asked.

“…I don’t know. Disturbed. And this rough movement won’t help, sir. Can’t we do something?”

“We could put before the wind,” Choi informed me. “But we won’t: we’re heading exactly where we want to go, fast – little more than a week and we’ll reach the seal herds.”

“On your head be it,” I muttered.

“No, Dae – on yours. You’re the one who stuck him.”

“I regret it! And I’m trying to undo it.”

“No, no!” boomed Choi, bashing me on the head with the coffee mug as if I were a schoolboy who’d messed up my sums. “I was so pleased for you: coming into your own, silencing the source of your torment with your own hands! Real power, real living.”

“Well he’s not at all silenced.”

“You’d rather have killed him, eh?”

“No!” I protested; he looked right into me with those great sparking eyes and knew I was lying. And I knew, by his own warped world-view, that he’d be happier to have me a murderer than a liar. Choi’s lips thinned: I’d progressed, but I continued to disappoint. I just had to hope the upswing in his mood would offset it.

“Go and tie him into bed,” he ordered, peering up at the sky. “And have old Ham brace himself too: I think it’s going to get fresher yet.” He watched me go, wolf-like: considering whether to spring.

I was preparing supper – cold, it was too hard to manage a hot meal on my own and the two men who might assist me were strapped safe in bed – when there came the slap of feet in the passage and Sakurai’s permanently bruised face appeared round the doorway.

“…The son-of-a-bitch wants you on deck!”

“Me?” I set down the kitchen knife I had liberated from Myungsoo and looked at him, suspicious. “What for?”

“Dunno. But for god’s sake, Dae, watch yourself: he’s in one of his humors.”

I climbed the ladder crablike, it was at such an angle, and emerged through the hatchway to find a magnificent setting sun, a shrieking wind, and the deck wet with spray. Glancing at the masts I saw the maintopsail and jib had been furled but that the Neukdae still tore through the water, skipping and ploughing like a good hunting horse – as, indeed, she was.

“Twelve knots!” yelled a young sailor. There was a general pleased murmur, an incongruous sound in that unhappy ship; even the lumpish hunters looked lively. I heard Choi laugh, turned, and found him by the bowsprit getting soaked: reveling in the brief moment of pure pleasure. When he caught sight of me his grin changed: something with a great deal of anticipation and which was still all teeth, but which made Sakurai’s warning a lot more pointed.

“We’ve got her under too much sail,” he greeted me. “It’s pressing her down – and with this wind something could carry away.”

“Then take it in, sir!” I pointed to the obvious danger, the high square foretopsail that was set tight as a drum and was obviously hurting our stability.

“Quite so,” said Choi. “Thank you for the suggestion. If you’ll be so good as to go and furl it, we’ll bring the yard down presently.” I gaped at him, certain I’d misunderstood.

“…Me? Go…”

“That’s right.” He pointed at the ladder-like shrouds, still smiling. “Up you go. Just pull in the sail when they loosen it and tie it to the yard with those little ropes.” I looked up: they were all little ropes. And little poles: mere sticks. A violent physical memory of terror in climbing to the foretop struck me. Choi saw it in my eyes and clicked his tongue at me. “Oh, to shirk your orders now, Dae! When you were so _brave_ all night.” The fucking monster.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked despairingly.

“You’ve deprived us of a cook,” he said, so reasonably. “Did you think that could go unpunished? A violent quarrel in my own ship! What kind of captain would I be?” I knew Choi didn’t give a damn about Myungsoo; if anything he’d been delighted. Then I’d disappointed him, and _that’s_ what I was paying for.

“What happens if I refuse?” I replied. Choi tilted his handsome head. I had a glimpse of his scarred, beautiful hands.

“Do you really want to know?”

“…No,” I said, and shuddering I stepped towards the shrouds.

It was then that the crew, who’d been unable to hear over the wind, realized what I was about. Several of them goggled, a few laughed, while more darted covert looks of loathing at Choi. Some – the few friendly faces – wore expressions of dismay.

“Sir!” cried Jongkook, leaping off his lashed-down boat. “Let me do it, it’ll be much quicker!”

“No,” said Choi. He had followed me aft and was surveying his crew’s reaction. “Dae wanted to learn sailing; how better than a practical lesson?”

“Sir,” said the big man again, conviction but also something like pleading in his voice. “It isn’t right. It isn’t safe.”

“It shan’t be safe for either of you if you keep on.” Choi cast around the deck and called out to Song: getting on in years, somehow almost always drunk, and always put upon. “Nip up and take in the starboard side, Song – he can copy you.” Song eyed the tilted foremast with displeasure but not much fright; he had spent his life at sea. He rolled a baleful eye at his captain but refrained from speaking aloud, merely muttering under his breath as he set his feet to the ratlines and swarmed upward. In a kind of daze I made my way to the opposite side: what else could I do?

“Not that side!” Jongkook piped up urgently. “The windward side! The climb’s not as steep where she’s heeled over, see? And the wind on your back will keep you pinned secure.” As there was no adverse comment from Choi I nodded shakily and followed in Song’s footsteps.

I was fine until I reached the top of the foreyard shrouds, where they came together leaving precious little hold for a foot. Jongkook had been right: the wind, though terrifyingly loud, was helping, pushing me into the rope ladder like a large hand. But the way into the foretop put my heart in my mouth: the ascending sailor was required to lean backwards and climb at an angle up the futtock-shrouds like a shivering spider before he could attain the precarious safety of the top. My muscles had developed in my month aboard, but I knew if my grip failed now I would crash straight down onto the ship’s rail – or, if I fell on a roll, right into the sea.

“Come along, lad,” croaked Song shrewishly; he gave me a callused paw and I gripped his wrist. “Keep lookin’ up, that’s the way.” He hauled me into the top with wiry strength; it was as high as I’d ever been and the horizon spread out around me, an uneven line of waves and the sun red on the water. At this time, though, I was less likely than Choi to appreciate nature’s beauty; I clung to the mast as the wind tore past us. “No lookin’ down!” Song snapped, and pointed aloft. “Up we go: up to the yard.”

It was some minutes before I could bring myself to move, and in those minutes the wind only increased. Song roundly scolded me in imaginative language I would normally blush to hear, and at last I began the climb again up the topmast: a thinner pole, narrower rope – and oh, how she rocked and rolled up here! The motion of the masts at their top was far greater than at their base on below decks, and they described a vast swooping arc through the air, mostly forward and back but also with jolts from side to side as stray waves made her roll. I could feel myself crying silently, but the way down seemed even worse. And I had thought the Neukdae a small vessel! How lofty she was.

“Now then,” bawled Song when I finally attained the long horizontal yard. “I’ll go out this way, you go out that.” He pointed to larboard, where the yard dipped down to leeward. “They’ll clew up slow, and we just gather this ol’ sail in fast as may be and tie it tight with those small little ropes!” I looked, and trembled: I’d seen the sailors up here before from my detached position on the deck; one stepped out onto the rope suspended from the yard, leaning one’s middle across the yard itself and holding on, and so moved outward. The men appeared to manage this as easily as strolling along a narrow path; but I had never dreamed of doing it myself. Now the footropes were swaying in the wind, the whole yard was creaking and revolving with the motion of the mast.

“I can’t!” I yelled.

“Hold on tight,” was Song’s only advice; and he shuffled onto his side of the yard. I knew by the look on his bristled face that it was more than ordinarily dangerous: Choi would have normally lowered this sail an hour ago and sent a fair number of men to do it. I was sure he was laughing, fathoms and fathoms below; but I must not look. I bent myself over the wood, felt the physical and emotional lurch in my stomach as it took my weight, and stepped out onto the yard.

I got to the middle essentially by closing my eyes and bellying along, hanging over the yard like a sheet on a clothesline being flapped in the wind. Far below a surge of voices yelled at me to stop, that was far enough! I heard Tak’s orders, whipped away by the howling wind, and the sail below me began to billow as they loosened the sheets. I glanced right and saw Song grab the canvas, still balancing on his belly, and doggedly bundle it up in horizontal folds before it could tear away from him. I tried to do the same – but letting go my hands was petrifying. I pulled weakly, much slower than the other sailor: he was already tying his side to the yard, the wind dragging his remaining long hair from its topknot. I was almost blinded by my short fringe. Jongkook bellowed something encouraging; I tried again, feebly, and managed to get one string around the sail. It hung there loosely. Song had already tied a row of neat bunts and was moving back towards the mast at speed. Slowly I tied my second furl; my hands were cold now, with the wind and fear, and I fumbled with the rope.

“All right?” I heard Song scream: he had returned to the mast and was firmly wedged in the shrouds. I shook my head. “Wind’s gettin’ up!” he advised. I gave him a mute stare – I needed help, I couldn’t move my feet anymore: I couldn’t get back in. Song pursed his lips, and seemed to be about to move when a tremendous voice drifted up from below:

“Song! Get your damned carcass down here now!” The older sailor shot me a terrified look. Then he shook his head and darted swiftly down. I was alone. And I was stuck. “Dae!” came the voice even louder. “Tie off that last rope and come down!”

“I can’t…!” I wavered, eyes tight shut. I don’t know if they heard me; from my throat to my toes I felt paralyzed. The wind gave an especially violent buffet, and when my eyes flew open I saw it was getting dark. A pause in which I guess Choi gave an order, and then what seemed like the entire ship’s company shouted:

“ _Hold on_!” That being the one thing I could do right now, I did. Suddenly the yard beneath me jerked downwards, dropping what felt like a fathom but could only have been inches; I understood they were hauling it down to its resting place, something you would never do with sailors still upon it. Another jerk and the rope beneath my feet swung wildly; the wind crashed over me again. I had to move inward where the swaying was less! If I could make it back to the foremast I could lash myself into the top and wait out the wind – I was sure I would never get back to the deck like this. I took a tiny shaking step to my right, made the mistake of opening my eyes, and saw the deck pitching wildly far below me. And then my foot slipped.

I have never felt anything like the mixture of panic and adrenaline that hit me then, as the whole world jerked and I realized I was hanging by these insignificant ropes, almost dangling from the yard! The wind caught my body like a sail and snapped it to and fro. I might have just let go in despair; the old me would have. But somehow the brute desire to survive animated my body if nothing else, and I was scrambling for a handhold above me, dragging myself up with raw palms and aching limbs until I had the bulk of the yard beneath me again. How safe it seemed now, how secure! They had brought it down almost to its accustomed spot, still higher than I’d ever been, but even with the wind and the pitch of the ship it felt like a haven. Unthinking I scrambled up, up onto it, and lay with my legs and arms wrapped around it as if it was the back of a pony.

As I lay there panting and clinging and weeping I heard muffled shouts from below, and I dared a look down at the deck. There was Sakurai in the twilight gloom, hands on the shrouds; he wanted to help me, I could see that if only in pantomime. And Choi, grabbing his collar and flinging him back, no doubt telling him I was to do this myself or never come down. The bastard: all part of his experiment. Sakurai bounced up from the deck and lunged at the captain, and then the Wolf was there in truth. It was an ugly fight, Sakurai attacking him with pure hatred and Choi responding with cool, calculated blows; the younger man had no chance, though he got in plenty of hits. From my shaking eyrie I saw Jongkook standing by with clenched fists, a whole group of sailors looking ready to spring – to do something stupid. And as Sakurai’s body went limp Jongkook jumped at Choi, dragging him off and remonstrating with him; some of the others helped hold him back: it took many of them, while two more grabbed the unconscious sailor and ran him down the hatchway.

With Sakurai out of sight Choi appeared to stop resisting, and the bunch of sailors let go and backed away. They stared at each other for a while, Choi’s attention directed at Jongkook.

“Back to work!” the captain called over the wind. “Two reefs in the mainsail!” Glad to be out from under his eye the crew on watch went to their posts while the watch below disappeared, muttering to each other. No-one was coming to help me. After witnessing that, who would dare? I lay my cheek on the wooden surface of the yard – it was damp now, it had begun to rain – and despaired of myself. “Spending the night up there?” Choi inquired at the top of his voice. I couldn’t respond; I was frozen. Choi shrugged, said something to Tak, who nodded, and went below.

Soon it was fully dark, as dark as a rainy night at sea can be. The low lights on deck made it feel even further away, another world, almost. I lay there, my muscles seizing, then cramping. I think I even went to sleep for a moment, waking with a cry and clinging even tighter. I was chilled to the bone, and at one point almost resigned to my death. After some hours, however, it seemed the wind was dropping: the yard was no longer bucking beneath me and the rain was coming down less horizontally than before. I lay there a while longer, regarding the mast. If I could just get there I would be almost in the foretop, now they’d hauled the yard down. Could I…?

I knew there was no earthly possibility of me swinging my legs down, feeling for that tiny footrope: they were numb. But I stretched out one arm, touched a metal part of the yard: a handhold. I grabbed it with both hands, pulled, and crawled along on my belly a few inches. Yes: it was possible! Like a worm or caterpillar I wriggled my desperately slow way along the yard – I could almost touch the mast. That was the worst part: having attained it I must swing my legs round and find the shrouds. But looking resolutely upwards I did it, and as my feet found holds on the ropes I even felt myself smile through the unending, though now silent, tears. Down and down, I could scarcely command my limbs, until my feet touched something solid and I realized I had reached the foretop. It had felt precarious enough on my way up; now it seemed safe as the ground. I collapsed there, clinging on, and let myself start shivering again.

“Ahoy, Dae!” came a cheerful voice through the dark, and I glanced down to see Choi in a tarpaulin coat looking up at me. The mate must have had him fetched as soon as I was on the move. His presence galvanized me: my fury at him was a great energizer. Rubbing my wet and chilled limbs I almost snarled at him, and swung myself out of the top. My feet found the ratlines and I crept down the windward side a sodden lump, stumbling inboard at last after god knew how many hours. I lay spread-eagled on the deck; I could have kissed it. “From caterpillar to butterfly,” said Choi approvingly from above me. I ignored him. “Go to bed,” he advised me pitilessly. “I guarantee that when you wake up tomorrow you’ll be a new man.” I growled at him wordlessly, nothing suitable or philosophical having come to mind – my mind was empty of everything except relief and hate – and crawled all the way down to my bunk.

* * *

Choi was right, damn him: I did feel different. It wasn’t only the friendly glances from the few decent men in the crew, who were obviously pleased I was alive – how good it is to feel the esteem of your fellow prisoners! For prisoners we were. No, it was something within myself. When I came on deck the next day I found I could regard the shrouds and the yard without a tremor; indeed, that lunchtime in the fine warm weather I climbed them while Choi was below eating, and if not quite like stairs they seemed less of a death sentence. My muscles were aching, of course, and I was on my way to catching an abominable cold; but now I had leisure to notice how my body had changed: the aching muscles were larger, stronger, more capable of dealing with arduous tasks. And with that realization some of my simpler fears melted away, as if my mind had decided there was enough to be frightened of aboard the Neukdae without being scared of heights.

Fear of the Wolf, that was it, the number one, all-encompassing dread beneath the veneer of loathing. In the afternoon I tended to my patients: Ham was up and about, helping me in the galley and even grateful that I’d sewn up his stump. He must have despised Choi more than many of the men but he never opened his mouth: plain, self-preservative fear. Myungsoo was weak and distressed in the most aggravating manner. While I couldn’t smell or see any infection I didn’t know enough to know what to do for him, and so he lay there, his little eyes begging me to save him. Sakurai was a mess, but a familiar mess; this had happened to him so many times. He was up and about again too. No fear for him: his vengefulness animated him better than any medicine.

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” I pleaded quietly before he went back to his watch. His dark eyes in their swollen surroundings flashed.

“Oh, I’ll be careful. Don’t you worry about that.” I let him go, I had to: Tak was screaming for him to get to work. But I was not at all reassured.

That evening when I took the watch their supper in the for’ard compartment I became aware of something odd. Not the resentful atmosphere or the approving smiles at the better cooking, just…whispers. It stopped whenever I came in with food, and seemed to be confined to a few spots, but would start up as soon as I left. Sakurai was in one of these groups, so I assumed they were venting their frustrations by raking Choi over the coals in his absence. I caught Jongkook’s eye and he gave me a look that seemed worried, more so than usual; I knew he was concerned about Sakurai. He didn’t seem to notice when I smiled at him, just sighed and tucked into his supper. I decided that if no-one wanted to speak up while I was around it meant they didn’t trust me; I wasn’t really one of them, after all. So I left them alone and went to borrow a book.

Choi’s door was closed. I’d learned my lesson: I knocked and waited. There was silence for a minute – he must be doing it again, that secret thing the crew gossiped about – then he told me to come in.

“Can I borrow Hamlet?” I said.

“Certainly, Dae.” From his friendly tone you’d think he’d never left me to kill myself on the yard the night before. I sneezed and he looked concerned. “Did you take a chill?”

“Yes,” I said stiffly. He tutted, but it didn’t hide his good mood: he was pleased with me. Whatever point he’d been making by sending me aloft, I had apparently made it for him.

“Are you angry with me?” He crossed his ankles and leaned back.

“No more than usual,” I replied. He did unthinkable things to other men so regularly that it seemed natural it should finally be my turn. “Only about Sakurai.”

“You’ll never stop Sakurai,” Choi cautioned me. “And so I shall never stop.”

“He’s braver than the rest of us, that’s for sure.”

“Is it bravery?” He looked interested. “Or animal instinct? What brought you down off that yard?”

“I suppose…bravery is overcoming either your mind or your body. Whichever is holding you back from what you ought to do.”

“Then I’m not sailing with a crew of lions,” said Choi with a smile. “For there’s no denying what they _ought_ to do – and yet I’m still alive.”

“You certainly are,” I agreed resignedly. More than anyone I had ever met.

* * *

My horrific experience on the yard had drained me physically, and that night after I changed Myungsoo’s dressing I dropped into a restorative sleep. The ship was running smoothly under her fore-and-aft sails, the pitch just enough to lull me, and I slept for some hours. The ordinary noises of the watch above would not have woken me; but when my eyes jolted open it was to loud thuds above my head and urgent yells. They must have crept through my dream, because one seemed to flow into the other as I woke. I sat up blearily: another storm? No, the motion was still easy. Another crash and a cut-off scream, and at that I leapt out of bed and dashed up the ladder in my long-johns. I poked my head up cautiously, like a rabbit from its hole, and saw…nothing. Odd. The night watch were about their duties, or at least some of them were, standing studiously at the wheel or lookout point or busily playing with ropes. The rest were huddled by the mainmast; in the dark they all seemed to be staring the same way, at me or beyond me towards the stern. I climbed up.

“I heard noises,” I said. No-one spoke. I looked about some more, and gradually it dawned upon me what was strange: there was no officer on deck. “Where’s Mr. Tak?” I inquired, for it had been his watch. A mass shrug. It struck me that there was an unusually large number of men up here, some of whom should rightfully be sleeping. “…What’s happening?”

“Dae,” said a familiar voice, and a figure stepped out of the shadows into the circle of one of the lamps. It was Sakurai, and however bad he’d looked after I patched him up he looked worse now. Had he gone after Choi again so soon? “Go back to sleep. It’ll be fine in the morning.” I went cold all over: something _had_ happened. He spoke thickly, his accent even stronger, wincing as if his jaw had been broken.

“Where’s Tak?” I asked again, ignoring his suggestion in my horror. And then, thinking of the racket that had woken me: “Where’s the captain?”

“Gone,” said another voice shortly, and a second sailor stepped into the light, also terribly battered and hunched over in a way that told of a stomach injury. “What’ll _you_ do about it?”

“Leave him be,” called a dull voice from the shrouds. “There’s nothing he can do anyway.” I saw Jongkook climb down and eye me sadly, his strong jaw taut. He was unbruised but looked shattered. “Tak’s gone,” he told me tightly. “Over the side. And the Wolf too.” I stood with my mouth hanging open, understanding what had happened on this deck in the dark. And I shuddered, but should not have been surprised. Some of them – I couldn’t say at this point how many – had had enough. I wondered in dismay if Choi’s treatment of me had anything to do with this…murder.

I swallowed, and was about to say something; but what? Should I be conciliatory and quiet like Jongkook? I didn’t think he’d had a hand in it, he was unbruised and unscuffed; but he probably thought they had done no very bad thing. Or should I speak up, voice my moral objections? For I had them, severe personal objections to disposing of a unique being like Choi by group force. Some of the men had never been sure about me: if I opposed them now they might do the same for me.

My indecision was brought to a close as all of a sudden their attention left me and came to rest incredulously on a spot at my back; their eyes were wide and disbelieving in the lamplight. I turned slowly, just in time to see a pair of arms clap on to the stern rail and heave, followed by a man’s dripping wet head, followed by the rest of him: Choi the Wolf.

“The fucking devil!” I heard someone gasp behind me. Choi lurched over the rail like an animated corpse and staggered upright on deck. In one bamboozled glance I saw that half of what I’d thought to be water was blood, cascading from a wound in his head – he looked worse than Sakurai! I gaped: I’d never seen him injured before, hadn’t even been able to imagine the sight; but here was proof the Wolf was mortal.

The sailors were goggling at their captain – risen from his watery grave – and thus far hadn’t moved. Now I heard muttering rise behind me, a furious back-and-forth, and even without catching their words I knew what they said: some of them wanted to finish the job this time – he was badly hurt and exhausted, it might be their only chance. The others, I suspected Jongkook included, said no: they’d failed once and it hadn’t been a fair fight then. Besides, could he really be killed? I’d known for a long time that sailors are deeply superstitious souls; one or two of them were eyeballing Choi now as if he really might be a demon.

“…I don’t know who it was yet,” I heard Choi say in a rasping, guttural voice with a somewhat mythic quality to it; I suspected he’d been throttled. “But you all come at me again, however many of you – and I’ll find out.” He didn’t speak to what would happen when he did; but after a half-hearted feint or two the mass of hands shuffled further into the shadow beneath the mainsail and declined his invitation. “Dae?” said Choi.

“I don’t know.” I could guess, though – and tomorrow some of those lacerated faces and body wounds inflicted by Choi himself would show clearly enough who was responsible. I felt a clench in my stomach at the thought of what would surely happen to Sakurai.

“Sakurai. Kim Jongkook.” There was a pause. Then two voices in the dark said ‘yes, sir’: Jongkook because he was honest to a fault, Sakurai because there was no point pretending he wasn’t there. Choi made a thoughtful rumbling noise, then spat blood onto the smooth planking. “Clean up,” he ordered. “Someone wake up Yankee Jo: it’s his watch now. And there will be no more problems tonight.” The not unamiable second mate had managed to sleep right through it all; I didn’t envy him this watch. Having issued his absolute proclamation, with a hitching limp and a truly dangerous expression Choi stalked below. After a last troubled glance at the now-anonymous group beneath the mast, I followed him.

“Is that you, Dae?” asked Choi when I knocked at his door. I said yes and he bade me step in.

“Shall I light the lamp, sir?” I suggested; he was standing in the dark, swaying.

“No. The light hurts my eyes – my god-damned head…”

“Sir, I need to examine you,” I cajoled, holding up the medicine chest and book. The head wound would surely want stitching, and god knew what injuries his wet garments were hiding.

“All right. But let it burn low.” I set my supplies down and went to light the lamp.

“Close your eyes,” I said quietly, so as not to pain his head more. When I turned round Choi was flinging off his undershirt, and for the first time I saw him naked. For a minute I didn’t even notice his injuries, only stared – he was sheer perfection, I mean the masculine ideal of those European sculptors; and even I, who had never been subjectively arrested by another man’s physique, could not be unmoved.

“…How strong you must be,” I think I said. Choi wheezed out a laugh and twisted, lean muscles rippling artistically, but it was only to peer down at a deep gash in his left calf. A veritable David; but I don’t believe he had any notion of his aesthetic beauty: the only thing his muscles represented to him was power over other men.

“It serves me well.” Until tonight, I said silently, finally able to take in the cuts and gouges and places where spectacular bruises were sure to form; I could only guess at the titanic struggle he had put up. “Even tonight,” he said, contradicting my thought; his hand rose to clutch at his head, but he mastered the pain and lowered it again. “I’d _have_ to be dead before I gave up this ship: man and boy I’ve known her, the sweetest, most good-natured creature…I yearned for her, you know, when I was no higher than your hip; and I bought her fair and square. Square, anyway… I’ll never let her go.” His tone had taken on a nostalgic, rambling quality, and if ever I’d thought the Wolf was a strictly pragmatic beast I would now have learned otherwise – he sounded almost as if he was speaking of a woman. I leaned up and peered into his face: I suspected concussion. Then he shook his head and said in a harsher voice: “There were at least six of them – Sakurai, most likely Kim Jongkook too.”

“I don’t think so,” I told him, but I might have been talking to the wall for all the good it did. I shook my head and began to wash and dress his wounds: the one on his forehead first, high above his temple by the hairline, now marked by a long untidy row of stitches: I wasn’t a sailor born and I’d never learned to sew. Feeling across his ribcage I suspected he’d cracked at least two, and bound him up tight with bandages. A cruelly strained ankle, a dislocated thumb that I had to snap back with a pop that made me cringe; innumerable cuts, and the internal beating he must have taken. I couldn’t see how the man was standing upright. “What’s going to happen now, sir?” I asked when I was finished doctoring him.

“Now?” Choi considered, swallowing the glass of water I’d mixed with a tiny dose of laudanum. “I’ll promote Jo; and if the wind holds we’ll reach the Bering Sea in perhaps three days.” To my amazement he actually smiled, though the movement looked painful. “Then I may find something to cheer me…”

“I mean…about the attack. The mutiny.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said worryingly.

“You need all the hands you can get,” I reminded him. He simply grunted, so I gave up for the night and added: “Go to bed, sir, now.” Choi ordered me to fetch a bottle of soju, and my status as a physician was not exactly established enough to forbid it. When I got back with the key he had dressed warmly and was turning down his bunk. “Is there anything else I can get you?” I inquired. For a moment his puffy eyes darted towards his desk; then he waved a hand in dismissal and I crept away, putting out the lamp as I did so. I heard him lock the door behind me: wise. I sighed miserably, hefted my box, and went to see to Sakurai and the others.

* * *

Jiyong was on deck in the afternoon sunshine, watching his crew and whittling, a flurry of pine shavings flying away like so many snowflakes on each rise. He was meditating on death, and if he could be said to have a leisure interest it was this. He didn’t read, didn’t play an instrument, could sew well enough for repairs but not for anything decorative – he wouldn’t be caught dead doing the lovely embroidery he’d seen the old British ex-Navy men take pride in. Any hobby that smacked of the feminine he deplored, for himself at least. Whittling was good: he was handy with a knife and it required no thought whatsoever, allowing his mind to drift away into a neutral contemplation of his prospects if he was lucky; if he was not he would drop into waking dreams of the past: stolen boats, fish, a pair of strong bronzed hands that shoved him into a ship’s locker and desperately motioned him to be silent; his father’s footsteps; bitterness. He had to clap a stopper over those as soon as they began, and would be in an awful humor the rest of the day.

Now his mind had directed itself – not exactly pleasantly, but much more safely – to the dead sailor. It wasn’t the first time a man had died aboard one of his ships, of course; this was a dangerous trade. It was not even the first death he’d had a hand in. But it niggled at him. Perhaps it was because Chae had been a Korean; Jiyong had never thought to ask where he’d come from, if he had a family. He supposed there must be an address in the muster-book – he would check with Ueno at the end of the voyage. Still, Chae had been terribly poor and not much of a sailor, lucky to be rated cook’s mate; surely he couldn’t be any more miserable wherever he was now than his life in this world had been. Jiyong had overheard Dong assuring the other two Korean sailors that their mate was in Heaven; he had ordered the Christian away from them, of course, and given them each a sharp crack with the lead end of his cane to knock the psalm-singing out. But yes, it was the missionary’s fault he was unable to forget.

Idly Jiyong mulled over the idea of ridding himself of Dong as well: he’d as good as murdered one of his countrymen this voyage; why not another? Dong’s ship had been wrecked and there was no way for anyone to know he was ever aboard the Fusan-Maru. Jiyong smiled thinly to himself: lately it was one of his jollier fantasies.

“What are you making?” a voice intruded – speak of the devil indeed. Jiyong narrowed his eyes against the sun and the sight of Dong Youngbae blocking it out. The robust young man ignored his look, taking a seat cross-legged a little way off. Jiyong inhaled with displeasure. “Well you’ve banned me from speaking to most of your crew,” said Dong. “I’ll go mad at this rate.” The older man, who under no circumstances could be described as gregarious, gave him an uncomprehending look. “Anyway, it’s very good – you must be a rare hand with a knife.” Was that a verbal stab at him? Dong looked perfectly innocent. Jiyong glanced down at his lap, and with a start realized what he had been carving while lost in thought.

“…It’s a sealing ship.”

“Not the Fusan-Maru,” Dong guessed: even his landsman’s eyes could differentiate between the somewhat squat utility of their steam vessel and the slim, graceful creation under Jiyong’s hands.

“No. A schooner.” He had whittled her hull from memory, scarcely even looking. He hadn’t seen her in a dry dock since he was a child so he’d had to fudge the keel, but he was sure it would be elegant. Yes, hull-up he would know her as soon as look at her. “The Neukdae.”

“The Wolf.” Jiyong nodded, suddenly tempted to break the ship in two – as he hoped might happen to the real one. “She’s too pretty for a wolf,” observed Dong, who was obviously trying to be conciliating. He had blundered, of course: Jiyong’s lips thinned.

“Wolves can be handsome enough,” he said with a sneer. Dong looked lost, aware he’d made a gaffe. Perhaps he would think twice before approaching Jiyong again.

“Do you know her well?” Jiyong thought about telling Dong he did, and that if he had any say in it they’d all get tolerably acquainted with her once they reached the sealing grounds: he had ideas. He had no desire to open his mind to anyone, however, let alone to a preacher who would love to probe around in it. So he got briskly to his feet and held out the carved Neukdae to Dong, who looked surprised. Jiyong didn’t want it.

“Here. If anyone’s listening to your prayers, pray she loses a mast.” He strode off, all broodings on death expunged for the time being. After all, the Neukdae and her master were inseparable, and Choi had always meant _life_ : far, far too much of it.

* * *

The tone aboard the Neukdae had been so odd since Tak’s death and Choi’s superhuman fight for survival that I hardly knew what to make of it. It appeared most of the crew felt the same as I, and over the next two days a strange, uneasy peace born from fear of what might happen pervaded the ship. Choi had inexplicably failed to punish anyone, instead hounding his crew to wring every fathom of speed they could out of her: he made no example of the wounded but let them take no extra rest – if he could work, he told us, everyone could. The men, initially suspicious of me for nursing Choi but coming around when I did the same for their wounds and spoke out for Sakurai and Jongkook, finally seemed to relax around me as we wondered together when the axe would fall. This was just as well: after Tak’s disappearance the second mate, Yankee Jo, was promoted – and Choi ordered me to take his place.

“You did so well on the yard,” he told me with a grin that made him hiss as I checked him over: his face was still shockingly cut and bruised, and from his narrowed eyes I was sure the lamp I shone in them hurt him; I wasn’t confident of the head wound at all. “And you’ll get a raise, plus a cut of the profits. There’s an incentive for you!”

“I’ve got Myungsoo and everyone else to care for – and I don’t know anything about sailing yet!” I exclaimed in horror – I couldn’t care less about the money. This was another test, wasn’t it, another chance for me to fail so he could teach me a lesson. Choi was unmoved.

“But you are at least intelligent. Let’s see if you can apply it to something useful instead of studying imperialist dogma.” It _was_ a test; he wanted to know if his changes had stuck. He’d been gently – for him – trying to force my growth, the way a gardener forces a plant: a far more subtle and long-ranging version of the way he’d manipulated the half-dead Myungsoo. “I have every faith in you, Dae,” he assured me. He flexed his newly-scarred hands, the most efficient weapons he owned, and I got the point: the lesson might begin at any time.

“All right, sir. If I must.”

“You must. I…” He seemed about to say something else, but abruptly set his jaw and remained silent. A couple of seconds later he waved a hand to dismiss me and I gratefully retreated to worry about this latest ill fortune; the last thing I saw was him leaning against his desk and staring blankly at his charts. Not long now, I thought: to the hunting ground, and to his brother.

* * *

Now our life-or-death crises had passed – or at least lay in abeyance – I was able to turn my mind again to the specter of Choi’s mysterious relative, and I had my chance to ask the sailors about him one dog watch soon after. It was only a day, maybe two since the breeze had slackened, to where we might expect to pick up the seal herds, and we were running smoothly in a light mist with the wind abaft our port side; the hands had hardly needed to touch a rope since morning. After taking the noon observation as best he could what with the mist Choi had announced he was going below to check the chart. The two-hour watch was mine, and let us see if Mr. Kang – I was given an honorific along with my station – can manage not to tip us over. I was a bundle of nerves, but there was a good man at the helm and the bosun was on deck. I asked Song quietly if he’d give me a quick lesson; and it turned out that such was the general good opinion of me he didn’t even ask for a liquor bribe. It was only a small scrap of regard but it was one of the rare honest bits of warmth I’d felt since I fell off the Nagasaki packet.

Before long a few more crew members ambled up to criticize my teacher and give their own expertise as pertained to the names and functions of ropes, points of sailing, and so on. I can’t say I was maintaining good discipline but I judged it didn’t matter in this faint but well-directed wind.

“Can you tell me,” I asked, having climbed carefully to the foretop – Choi, damn his eyes, had been right, I no longer felt the same fear of heights – “about this Fusan-Maru? About why we crack on so?” Three sailors draped themselves easily in the rigging around me.

“Sure, which it is his brother’s steamer,” said one by the name of Tokko; he loved to talk, every time I laid eyes on him his mouth was open. He couldn’t have been one of the men who’d attacked Choi, couldn’t even have been on deck, or Choi and everyone aboard the Neukdae would know all their names by now.

“That ain’t his brother, mate! The Wolf just hates the man for kowtowing to the Japanese!” A heated argument followed between this sailor, Tokko and Sakurai as to whether or not Choi had a family or if he’d been conjured fully-formed from Hell itself. Tokko settled it by swinging across and smiting the unbeliever with a solid fist.

“That’s enough,” I said timidly in my first attempt to exercise authority. To my relief they settled down, and Tokko announced:

“It’s true! I met a man myself who knew ‘em both as kiddies. That was, oh, years ago.”

“Besides,” added Sakurai, who was still hideous and spoke thickly where his jaw had indeed been fractured, “everyone in Busan’s heard of the Viper – no Korean wants to sign on aboard his ship.”

“Worse than the Wolf?!” I exclaimed, incredulous.

“Oh, _no_ ,” they all said grimly. “No. But p’raps nearly as bad.”

“What’s he like?” A general round of shrugs. Tokko offered:

“Never actually spoken to him, Mr. Kang. Seen him at the port a few times. But you hear such stories…” Knowing the tendency of sailors to mythologize, I decided we could come to the stories later.

“Well…what’s he look like?”

“Pale little scrap of a thing. Face like a lass.” I frowned; a description less like a sealer, that brutal trade, I couldn’t imagine. Certainly nothing like the Wolf’s classic manly proportions – I wondered why Choi acted so desperately eager to compete with him. The sailors chuckled at my expression.

“But as we hear,” said the man who thought they weren’t brothers, “he’s about as beloved by his crew as our own fucking monster is by us. Rough men too, and Japanese.” He spat. “But he manages ‘em.” Odder and odder; I wondered exactly _how_ he managed them. Then Sakurai piped up.

“When my brother was in foreign parts he saw these prey animals – there’s butterflies, and some kind of snake, I think – that disguise themselves as predators. For safety, see?” I nodded; I had read about them. “Well. They say Kwon’s the opposite of that: looks like he couldn’t hurt a fly, but stray within his reach and you’ll get _bit_.” The other sailors nodded sagely; blood relatives or not, it appeared Kwon had violence in common with Choi. “Don’t I wish we may run into ‘im,” added Sakurai, in a lower voice but with great relish. “I’d give my season’s pay to see a Viper take a chunk out of a Wolf.”

* * *

The Fusan-Maru had sighted a number of other sealers already, Americans and Japanese, all heading for the same place. Jiyong viewed them dispassionately – would be happy to see them all sink beneath the sea – but with great attention. Most of them were steamers like himself; but on the one or two occasions his lookout did catch a sailing rig on the horizon he found his heart would skip and, like always, he would grab his binoculars and shinny up one of the small masts. He rarely set his two sails, it was unnecessary in this day and age, but it gave him a good vantage point; and the sense of both satisfaction and disappointment he felt when the ship turned out not to be Choi’s was quite piercing. He would know the Neukdae’s sail plan anywhere, and the general way Choi would handle her – he had watched the older man in this way for years. Where was Choi now? He hoped behind him; but if she had left port early there was a chance that with good winds she was already there before him on the ever-thinning hunting ground. He trusted not, however: Jiyong was not attached to his ship the way he imagined Choi loved his, but she ought to be able to beat a god-damned schooner.

“Sir!” called the lookout, drawing his attention, “ship off our starboard quarter!” Jiyong retrieved his glass and climbed the mast at the stern; up here the smoke from the funnel got in his throat unpleasantly but he could see the ship, hull-up and heading in their direction. He experienced the customary flutter of possibility as he focused, then the jolt as he caught sight of her stacks: another steamer. He swore and slid back to the deck, and went about his day with one eye on the stranger.

By mid-afternoon the ship was closer. Jiyong thought she was going to cut their wake and pass on in a different direction; perhaps she wasn’t a sealer but a small cargo ship bound for China or one of the smaller Asian countries. The sailors watched with mild interest while he observed her narrowly: too close to be polite and he would give her something to think about. By the time the steamer was near enough to read the English letters ‘John B. Swift’ on her side, the news had got around the Fusan-Maru that she might come within shouting distance. Most of the crew could speak a little English and were bored and lonely enough that an American ship close-to was entertainment: the off-watch came and leaned on the rail, chattering in fast Japanese.

An hour later the John B. Swift was nearer still; she was certainly going to cross their wake. With all that sea room why did she come up so close? Jiyong wondered, lips pursed; from the look of the sky they were in for a nasty squall and he would prefer to keep some distance. Perhaps her captain was as eager for news and company as his sailors. Jiyong still wasn’t best pleased – providing his crew with entertainment was not exactly a priority – but at least he could ask for news of the Neukdae. It was about this time that he noticed Dong Youngbae among the men at the rail. Dong didn’t come on deck very often anymore, not when Jiyong was there; he spent most of his time in his cabin or below in the sickbay, reading to the men, tending to their injuries when Mizuno was busy – a proper angel of mercy. Jiyong personally wondered if his crew might prefer another beating to more bible verses, but as Dong was sensibly keeping out of his way he let them alone. And now here he was, staring eagerly at the approaching American ship.

“If you take it into your head to speak with her, Mr. Dong,” said Jiyong, coming up behind him and stretching to murmur beside his ear, “to perhaps ask for a lift or otherwise indicate dissatisfaction with the Fusan-Maru, I shall have the night watch throw you back from whence you came.” Dong craned away from him as if he were poisonous, eyes wide; after a moment he said:

“You’d really do it, wouldn’t you.” As a matter of fact Jiyong wasn’t exactly sure how far he might go, but he’d certainly been thinking about it. He nodded anyway and gave the young man a thin smile.

“Isn’t it nicer for everyone when we get along?” With one eye on the crestfallen Dong he stepped onto the stern railing and waited for the foreign ship to get close enough to hail. The sailors on both vessels were hooting and shouting at each other, unintelligible even when they were speaking the same language. Jiyong hardly understood English so he sent the younger cabin boy down for a loud-hailer and yelled for Hervey, one of his three American sailors, to join him. “Ask if they’ve sighted the Neukdae,” he ordered, carefully keeping the excitement out of his voice. “A wooden topsail schooner, around eighty feet.” A moment for Hervey to parse the Japanese instructions, then he sang out through the hailer, one eye on Jiyong as if he knew exactly why his captain was so interested. Jiyong supposed they all knew he was hungry for the sight of her, though not about his connection to Choi – at least, he hoped not; the thought was so distasteful to him.

“They’ve not seen her, sir,” Hervey said after the shouted reply came. That meant the Neukdae was either well behind, slave to every caprice of the wind, or was already ahead of both of them and making profit as they spoke. Jiyong hid his disappointment and gave the John B. Swift a sour look. But Hervey was still conversing. “Sir,” he said, his expression changing to match his captain’s. Jiyong raised his eyebrows. “Have you heard of somethin’ called the ‘North Pacific Fur Seal Convention’?” He looked angry.

“Oh, that,” Jiyong replied. That bright idea had been floating around since ’05: a conservation effort, aimed at managing the dwindling fur seal population. A laudable goal, but ridiculous in practice: as long as there were women and fancy gentlemen clamoring for sealskin the supply must continue, which was why the damn thing hadn’t been ratified in six years.

“They’re ready to sign it, sir!”

“What?” Suddenly all the hunters and half the sailors within earshot were listening to Hervey with great attention.

“In July, they said! That Swift sailed outta Washington, their captain heard it there. The US, Britain, Japan, Russia, they’re all comin’ in: no more seal hunting at sea at all, the Americans to manage all the hunts by land!” There were rumbles of consternation at this, cries of ‘fucking Americans!’; Hervey looked as distressed as the rest of them, the hunters especially: a sailor could find work on any kind of ship, but the hunters – and Jiyong – had a very particular trade. Only Dong looked cheerful.

Jiyong stood there silently furious as the other ship crossed their wake; he snapped at Ueno, who sent the hands back to work with efficient oaths and cuffs, then continued watching until the John B. Swift vanished in a distant squall. An end to his livelihood? He would accept that at the barrel of a gun – but all the more reason to crack on and fill his hold this season, before a god-damned piece of paper made things more difficult. An end to his seaborne feud with Choi? No, there would never be an end to that, not while Jiyong had a ship beneath him! He leaned his elbows on the rail, pea-coat wrapped tightly around him as the squall reached the Fusan-Maru and heeled her over beneath a driving rain. Had Choi heard the news yet? How might it make him behave when he did? Jiyong ignored the weather and tried to predict how all this might shape their bitter rivalry in the days ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The North Pacific Fur Seal Convention was one of the first international wildlife conservation efforts and a very good thing once it finally got ratified - but not if you were a sealer!
> 
> I'm super scared of heights, and while I love tall ship sailing I used to cry every time I had to go from the mast out on the yard, so a lot of Dae's fear is from my direct experience XD
> 
> Next week the rivals-slash-couple finally clap eyes on each other, and things quickly(ish) come to a head!


	5. Fireship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daesung gets a little closer to Seunghyun's origin story, while the Wolf and Viper finally get within shooting distance...

My curiosity must have made its way around the fo’c’sle because later that week I managed to speak about Kwon with Jongkook, of all people. It had been a difficult afternoon: for my part, the road to learning a second mate’s duties felt incredibly, impossibly steep, even with the help Yankee Jo and the crew were giving me. It was truer still now we had finally reached the fabled sealing grounds in the Bering Sea, a gray stretch of water hundreds of miles wide that we were to cruise back and forth, over and over, avoiding other ships and Russian territory as far as possible. We reached it without ceremony after threading through the arc of the Aleutian Islands, and were put to work by Choi as soon as ever we found the seals: the Neukdae had made good time, he said, but there was not a moment to be lost.

Now the entire pattern of our days changed: as soon as we ran across a herd – which was less often than I had supposed, but then we’d seen almost none on our trip up – the way would come off the Neukdae and the loafing hunters finally got to do some work. And what work! The six boats were lowered, each with a hunter, a puller, and a steerer, and dispersed in a fan shape towards the seals, often pursuing them over the horizon. This left the ship manned by Choi, the new first mate – whose only claims to distinction were that he had once been in Boston and an infallible ability to predict the weather – and myself. Ham was below in the galley, at home on his crutches now but useless on deck; and Myungsoo remained floating between complaints and fever-madness in his bunk. Choi, Yankee Jo and I kept the schooner hove-to or working slowly along to windward so that we might not lose the location of the boats, which were sometimes gone until after long dark. They went out empty and came back laden, often through fog and choppy seas, for the weather was changeable. The first day I was almost sick when I clapped eyes on the lead boat and its occupants: it was an abattoir, the boat and the men and the rifles soaked in blood and gore, and in the bottom a pile of limp pitiful seal skins. The smell was indescribable as we pulled it in and the mate counted the skins, even after the puller and steerer scrubbed it out and packed the hides in salt in the hold. And the boats kept coming.

“Care to go out with them one day?” asked Choi with a grin, walking through the welter as serenely as a lady at a Mitsukoshi department store. “Seeing as you’ve finally learned to use a pair of oars.” I shuddered; I had seen much of the seals now, pretty little playful things. Was all this so women of the upper class – my class – might enjoy their fashion? Looking at the aftermath of that first hunt gave me the strongest sensation that Choi was correct in his view of life: thoroughly beastly, and nothing beyond it when you were no longer strong or smart enough to survive – the seals had found that out. We were living, as I had told him only the day before, entirely according to Hobbes’ notion of life: ‘nasty, brutish and short’.

“The man knew what he was talking about,” said Choi, pleased enough to smile while I was checking his stitches; I was sure the wound or some underlying damage gave him headaches, though he rarely mentioned it.

“Hobbes was describing man’s natural life before the influence of _civilized_ society,” I informed him testily. Choi turned his smile into a curl of the lip.

“Civilized society is the entire reason we’re here!” he shot back. I thought of the ladies and their purses and gloves, and for the time being acknowledged myself defeated.

As the days went by I put aside my sneaking feeling that the Wolf was right, and overcame my nausea to a degree; but my convictions had been shaken. No wonder Choi thought the way he did!

This particular day Choi had observed me take the watch as I ordered the boats down, kept the Neukdae to windward of them, and handed over to Yankee Jo – who was constantly laughing at me in his mild and tipsy way – when the hides came back in. The captain watched the toughening of my hands and heart with neither encouragement nor censure, merely interest; all part of his human experiment. After the count there’d been yet another confrontation between Choi and Sakurai, something about the wrong number of hides recorded for their boat: Sakurai, backed by the honest Jongkook, swore it was higher than had been logged and accused Choi of stiffing them. Their American hunter wisely stayed out of it, listening narrowly in imperfect Korean and building his resentment in private; but Sakurai, inflamed by both the unfair treatment – accident or not, and I didn’t think Choi did anything accidentally – and his overwhelming rage at his captain still walking around alive, could not keep silent. Again and again he flew at Choi in the lamplight; and, of course, was beaten.

“I won’t stop!!” the young man spat, his accented Korean thickened by the blood in his mouth as Jongkook and another hand dragged him away. “Not ‘til you or I are out of this hell-ship for good!” This had become a regular and sadly depressing spectacle. At this point everyone, _everyone_ despised Choi; but the only one dumb and brave enough to attack him on his own terms was Sakurai. I feared deeply for what would become of him.

“Very glad to hear it,” said Choi with relish, exchanging a glare with Jongkook for good measure; I knew the violence, while it lasted, made him feel intensely alive. Then as we watched he put his head in his hands, turned, and went below. The aftermath that sometimes overtook him, I supposed: his sense of pointlessness in living at all. The crew relaxed gratefully and the off-watch went to their supper. For myself I followed Choi to his cabin to check his stitches and remonstrate with him again about what his attitude was doing to this floating world of ours; I’d found it was safer to beard him when he was depressed.

The door was ajar, moving gently with the ship’s roll. When I peeked inside he was sitting in an attitude I’d observed more and more often lately: his desk chair turned to face the room, peering up at the light although I knew it hurt him; he would blink rapidly, then close his eyes and rest his chin in one hand. Occasionally he would be facing the desk, staring intently at something held in his palm, but if I disturbed him like that he would roar at me to get out. I could never tell what he was thinking. Sometimes he would hold his head, and I thought perhaps it would pain him always – a souvenir from his well-deserved brush with death. He was holding it now. I decided it would be better to leave off scolding him for the time being, and was about to creep away when one of the planks beneath my feet creaked. Choi swung to the cabin door and looked right at me, with such a glare! I was in for it. But to my surprise he didn’t say anything: after a few moments’ tension he blinked and retreated back into himself, and I made my escape confused and more than a little perturbed at this new mood.

I had the middle watch that night. It was quiet and rainy, no wicked seas, but I was glad of the experienced crew there to put me right. We sighted another ship’s lights and I ran up to the foretop to check: a steamer, said Tokko on lookout, probably Japanese – we should go about and head away from her. These were standing orders from Choi, as – to no-one’s surprise – he wasn’t strictly in possession of the necessary license from the Japanese who presumed to control Korean trade. We tacked with the experienced hands’ help and the steamer soon vanished. At around three in the morning, with a steady man at the wheel, I made my damp way to the fo’c’sle where Jongkook and whoever was bored would teach me the fundamentals of sailing. Tonight it was knots, bends, hitches, and their uses.

“You heard about the Wolf’s brother, then,” said Jongkook in a moment of peace. After a pause I nodded and he began to talk; and what he told me was a good deal more illuminating than anything I’d heard so far. Jongkook was from the same village on Ulleungdo, it transpired to my great surprise. At twenty-four he was roughly a decade younger than his captain, but his family of course had known the Chois – or the Kwons, whichever it might be. I knew the young man hated Choi’s actions with a true righteous fire that was difficult for that honest soul to conceal; small wonder, for the Wolf’s reputation was no good reflection upon their birthplace. He was no gossip, however; what I got out of him was the result of his irrepressible bout of disgust born from that afternoon’s fight.

“My dad says Choi had no parents,” Jongkook told me as I practiced my knots. “At least, none who would own him. No-one knows where he came from.” To my amazement he sounded genuinely pitying – he was certainly the only decent man aboard the Neukdae.

“You mean he was a devil from birth?” I said with a bitter laugh. Jongkook shrugged his broad shoulders.

“You might well suppose it. I guess _someone_ birthed him and nursed him, someplace out of the way; later the village threw him enough scraps between them to keep him alive. But when he was about five, Kwon – the older Kwon, I mean – took him in. Said he needed a son, Dad told me. Kwon was a fisherman, a poor one; he had one of those old-world boats, a junk, and he hunted sea lions on Dokdo before the fucking Japanese cleared them out. A man’s work, strong man’s work.” Not so unusual, I thought: a man needed a boy to carry on that kind of trade, if not his family line. It was common to adopt if one remained unmarried or if no sons were forthcoming.

“So he took Choi off the street,” I said. “…And what, _then_ he found a wife and had Kwon Jiyong?” Maybe that would explain Choi’s clear dislike: it must have been painful to be supplanted by a better son, a _blood_ son. Jongkook gave me a crooked smile in the moonlight.

“See, that’s the oddness of it: Kwon Jiyong was already born when his dad adopted Choi.”

“Eh?”

“Mm-hm.” The big man nodded and corrected my fingers, which were mis-tying a double fisherman’s knot. “I heard the boy was over a year old when Kwon decided he ‘needed a son’.”

“Then…why?”

“Don’t know,” said Jongkook. “More children to cruelly abuse, maybe; I remember him before he died, he was a terror. He’d beat any kid that crossed him – I doubt it was any different with his own. A genuine mean old bastard. My ma said his wife was grateful to die young.”

“It’s strange,” I mused. Was it simply that he’d wanted a multiplicity of sons to help him at his work? Or that he was hedging his bets? The rate of child mortality among the poor was high. Or that he enjoyed pitting them against each other? The latter would certainly explain their current enmity.

“Aye. But Choi got tired of it before the Viper – I mean young Kwon – did: at sixteen or seventeen he left the island, left the country completely, who knows where?” The American ships, I knew; that hard apprenticeship on the sealers and whalers. An escape, I realized now. “When he came back old man Kwon was dead,” continued Jongkook. “And Kwon Jiyong was gone too.”

“Were there any rumors about Choi?” I pressed.

“About a thousand, and none of ‘em pleasant.”

“I mean to do with why he left. Anything about an affair? A woman?” I still could not think of a more likely reason for Choi’s mental transformation into the Wolf: he’d told me he had learned better than to care for another person, after all, and what else could it mean? It further struck me that perhaps he and Kwon had fought over a girl, and in the process ripped their family apart; there was plenty of precedent for that sort of thing.

“Women?” Jongkook smiled crookedly. “I imagine there’re plenty of _them_ ; for the short time it takes them to see past his face.” I sighed; perhaps I was on the wrong track.

“D’you remember Choi from when you were a kid?” He shook his head.

“No. If I have any memory of him it’s buried – beneath whatever he is now.” He stared sadly at the bowsprit. “I wish to god I’d never boarded the Neukdae, Mr. Kang, however sweet she sails; wish I’d not been so desperate for money as to act this foolish. Would’ve been better if he’d stayed a village anecdote.”

“…Just hang on and keep quiet ‘til the end of the season,” I told him, setting a hand on his arm; I felt a great fondness for him then, and pity: he was far braver than I, but that was what kept putting him in danger – helping Sakurai, especially. “No more heroics.” Jongkook looked down at me.

“If I can’t get off this ship I’ll die on her. I can feel it.” We didn’t speak any more. Silently I reminded myself that sailors are wildly superstitious creatures, full of premonition and paranoia at the best of times. But this time I was very much afraid his premonition might prove correct.

* * *

We’d been killing for over a week before we finally clapped eyes on Kwon Jiyong’s ship. Choi knew she was around, somewhere over the horizon: a British sealer we’d spoken to in passing – and then only because she was a schooner like the Neukdae – said they’d seen her enter these waters just a few days before. Choi smiled at the news that he’d beaten his brother to the post; but some other gossip from the British ship made him look very blank. His English was too fast and colloquial for me to follow and he wouldn’t tell me what he’d heard, only that it didn’t signify at all, and if I didn’t want to spend all night on my own in a boat I’d better give the order to set topsails _right now_.

And so we went about our business with Choi constantly on lookout. He kept the Neukdae closer to the boats than previously, bearing up if they were out of sight too long. When I asked why, he told me:

“When there’s a blow or a boat gets into difficulty or gets lost, it’s the custom for the nearest sealer to pick it up and return it when next the ships sight each other. But if that Viper catches hold of my good hunters he won’t give ‘em back.” I wondered if he was speaking from experience or because that was exactly what _he_ would do. In any case, for the next few days we sailed rather as if we were haunted: the Fusan-Maru was an invisible presence around the edges of our sight, and when Choi wasn’t below fuming and staring in his cabin – or so I supposed – he was in the cross-trees with his binoculars, concerned for his boats and avid for a sighting. And at last the ghost emerged.

“There,” he called with mixed aggression and relief, pointing away to starboard. Yankee Jo was at the wheel, so I checked the sails then hurried over to the rail. It was a sunny day and clear for once, but the light sparkled so off the waves that I could see little past our collection of boats out hunting.

“Where?” Choi slid down a backstay and offered me his binoculars. I followed his avid stare and pointed finger, and fixed her: hull-up on the horizon and on a parallel course to us; she didn’t seem interested in coming closer. While I could make out the rough details the distance was too great for me to spot her name. “How do you know it’s the Fusan-Maru, sir?”

“I just do.” I made no comment, and he glanced at me impatiently. “The rake of that ugly smokestack, the two masts – he never sets his sails, doesn’t care for the beauty of natural speed at all. Every year I see that damn silhouette. A filthy tub.” This was slightly rich given the current old-blood stink of the Neukdae, but Choi was right: the schooner was a beautiful if vintage creature, and the more I learned about handling a ship the more I appreciated her qualities. The Fusan-Maru couldn’t compare.

“Not a handsome vessel, is she?” I agreed.

“Hardly. But as I daresay you’ve learned, Dae, a handsome visage is no guarantee of virtue in any case.” I glanced at him sideways, that extraordinary face, currently at its most masculine with its injuries, his brows drawn down and his jaw squared; he’d never said a truer word. “The smokestack means she doesn’t need to use her sails, and she can move regardless of what the wind’s doing. And now you see why – apart from the question of your personal development – I was so eager not to waste time ferrying you to Nagasaki. The longer I could have the hunting-ground to myself, the better. Especially this year, as it turns out. And we did well, pretty well; a good head start.”

“But what can she do?” I inquired, glossing over that jab at myself. We’d had to dodge and hustle alongside other steamers, Japanese and British and American, for the past fortnight. What could one more hurt, so long as we kept a close eye on our boats? “She’s the same as all the others, surely.” It was a psychological issue, I supposed: the Fusan-Maru might be no different to the other ships but the man captaining her was – in Choi’s mind, at least.

“She’s a fucking privateer,” growled Choi, still squinting eagerly at the steamer. His eyes were brighter than I had ever seen them. “She was Russian before, they used her as a transport in the Reo-il War. See those two patches where the paint line’s irregular? Those are her gun-ports: three-pounder Hotchkiss cannons.”

“Isn’t it illegal, in peacetime?” I asked, shocked. Suddenly the Fusan-Maru was not only ugly but ominous.

“My brother minds the law about as well as I do.” His mouth twisted with a disdain of such familiarity one might almost misread it as fondness. “And he’s a still greater one for evening the odds – by any means at his disposal. His tactics aren’t at all bad for a man who’s never opened a book.”

There didn’t seem a lot one could say to that, and I was still dismayed at having an additional danger to my peace aboard ship, this time pointed at me from the outside. So I left him staring morosely through his binoculars and went below to fetch lunch; he’d not eaten or drunk much since he’d heard the Fusan-Maru had arrived. When I came back bearing kimchi pancakes and coffee I saw his head whip round, and I sensed that something had changed in the minutes I’d been away – something had gone wrong.

“I can’t see her,” he confided in a low voice, as if the deck was full of people who might overhear. “She was there, and then when I blinked she wasn’t!” He looked doubtful, shaken – a new and unsettling sight. “How can he move her that fast?” I put the coffee-pot and plate down. Squinting against the sun and waves I couldn’t see anything either. Choi passed me his glass and I peered through at where I’d last seen the steamer. I glanced at him, then looked again, to make sure I wasn’t mistaken.

“Sir, she’s…right there.” His huge eyes opened wide, body swinging towards me, and everything primal in me ordered mine to spring back: danger. He thought I was making game of him. “I swear! Two points off the starboard bow, just where she was.” I pointed and he snatched the binoculars back, now leaning forward as if those few extra inches would make a difference. How could he miss her? For a moment he turned his head out of the sun and blinked rapidly – and then it dawned on me. I’d seen that movement before, a few times, the last one that evening in his cabin; I’d thought he had simply chosen to ignore my presence, but with rising alarm I now suspected…he couldn’t _see_ me.

“…There’s nothing,” Choi said, but less certainly than before.

“Can you see our boats?” They were far closer, easily visible to the naked eye. He squinted.

“Yes.”

“Sir, when she…disappeared,” I said diplomatically, “did your head hurt?” He still complained of pain every so often, more than a fortnight after the murder attempt.

“Perhaps. A bit. It’s nothing.” And, at my worried glance: “Dae. If you mention a word of this to the men I’ll kill you. Fair warning?” Swallowing heavily I nodded; from him it was more than enough. We stood there, keeping the Neukdae directly windward of the boats in case we had to pick them up fast, and I gave Choi periodic updates on the movements of his brother’s ship: she had vanished in fact now, over the horizon; clearly she was satisfied with a little snooping today. Looking back, I’m sure my speech was rather jarred, my attention jolted by the foreboding I felt for Choi. And I wasn’t certain he was listening anyway – his awareness had turned inward in one of those brown studies that led either to a blue spell or a murderous rage, and as we brought the boats and hides in that evening I prayed it was the former: because one more incident might plunge the Neukdae’s already fragile truce into madness.

* * *

Now they were in sealing waters Jiyong’s hunting got underway: both for the seals and for Choi. Hearing that the Neukdae had beaten him by more than a week had put him in a foul mood. He ordered the boats to look out for her while they were away, and if they saw her to come back and inform him immediately – he would make up any shortfall of hide money. He had found in previous years that the Neukdae was an elusive ship on the hunting ground, fading away whenever she caught sight of a steamer. At first Jiyong had been somewhat smug about this: afraid of competing on the same patch as him, he had thought. Later, however, Choi had cut him out of some good catches and didn’t appear afraid to see the Fusan-Maru. Back in Busan Jiyong had asked around for any unfortunate sailors who’d been aboard the Neukdae, and found that Choi was acting slippery because he didn’t have a hunting license from the Japanese; though whether he had been refused one or was just too stubborn to apply no-one could say. That made Choi something of a pirate, a description Jiyong doubted he would contest. Still, Jiyong longed to catch up with him – he’d thought of some tricks to make him angry – and with the seal herds thinner than ever before it seemed inevitable they would converge in the end.

After five days’ cruising over a strangely empty sea – few herds, fewer ships – Jiyong at last found the Neukdae. It was the lookout who called it, though slightly less enthusiastically than before: Jiyong had been disappointed of several schooners by now and no-one liked his mood when he was. But it was her, he would know her anywhere even without her square sails set; he had seen her often in port as a child – had even been aboard her, Choi shoving him into a wooden locker and slamming the door on him. She hadn’t changed much, Choi had just modified her trim and repainted her, and even Jiyong would admit that objectively she was a lovely thing; however, he did not choose to be ruled by anything, least of all the capricious wind: a steamer was much more efficient. The Neukdae was far off and to windward of him, but that didn’t matter – with her engines the Fusan-Maru could come up close whenever she liked and Choi would have to laboriously tack to get away. On the other hand Jiyong’s boats were already out, far off to leeward, so he decided to stick with reconnaissance for today. The Neukdae was too distant to see any of her people but it was clear her boats were out too and she was being manned by a skeleton crew; it would be quite difficult for her to engage in any of the clever maneuvers of which he knew the Wolf was capable.

“Oh!” said Dong from behind him. “Another ship at last.” Jiyong reluctantly applauded his eyesight, to distinguish her from deck height without any glass or expertise at all. The missionary had taken to airing himself while the boats were away; he was clearly distressed at the carnage on deck whenever they came back and unloaded. “Quite a romantic picture, she is: like something from a pirate tale.”

“Closer than you think,” muttered Jiyong before grudgingly offering the younger man his binoculars. “But as you see,” he said louder, “she’s just an old-fashioned sealer.”

“Japanese?”

“No. Korean.” Dong glanced at him quickly, then set his eyes back to the glass.

“That’s rare!” Jiyong did not reply. “…Do you think we’ll meet her at close range?” Dong inquired innocently. “Like we did the American ship?”

“It’s possible,” said Jiyong. Dong looked very thoughtful, though all he said was ‘oh’ again. Jiyong smiled inwardly; it was tolerably obvious what the idiot was thinking: if he could get within hail of a Korean ship with its boats out he could jump overboard and swim for one of them. Dong _could_ swim, he’d ascertained, just not for very long. And there he would be, amongst friendly countrymen and guaranteed a safe passage home. Jiyong might have enlightened him on the subject of Choi the Wolf’s reputation and his likelihood of a courteous welcome, but he didn’t. He was almost inclined to let Dong try it – just for fun.

In the meantime he snatched the binoculars back and shooed his captive away. He wanted to take a full observation so that, coupled with an evaluation of the wind, a look at the chart, and an informed guess at Choi’s thought process, he might have some inkling of where the Neukdae would be come morning. Then, he hoped, he might be guaranteed some excitement.

* * *

The next morning, as every morning, we roused out the boats to leeward and they shot off with their small sails rigged; the wind was fresh and we had seen the bobbing heads and flippers that meant a likely sized herd. Yankee Jo had the wheel but we weren’t going anywhere much, just drifting in the same direction as the boats under a scrap of stabilizing sail, so when I asked leave to get a bite to eat and check on Myungsoo it was granted.

I adjusted the windsail, cleverly contrived by the bosun to let more air into the sickbay, and changed the cook’s dressing in the lamplight. The wound didn’t smell infected that I could tell, but neither did it seem to be getting better, and I was at a stand. Myungsoo was awake so I fed him some soup. I wasn’t sure if he knew it was me but he ate it up between rambling about his life onshore and at sea, the distant past and his childhood determination to get out of the squalor in which he existed, then bad luck and bad luck all down the line. I might have known even his delirium would be tedious and depressing beyond belief, and while I could feel pity for him it didn’t do much to endear him to me. So when Choi came below and saw me bathing his sweaty forehead he said:

“You make a poor nurse to those you don’t care for. You don’t hide your disgust at all.”

“Could you, with this one?” Myungsoo had fallen asleep and was whimpering in between snores.

“No. But I wouldn’t bother nursing him either.” I was sure of that.

“I have to – I can’t just leave him while he’s still alive.”

“Did you absorb the Hippocratic Oath while you were reading that book?” said Choi drily. I shook my head and looked down at my patient; it was a mystery how anyone so paltry and puny could keep hanging on.

“He seems to be fighting harder to live than I fought to kill him. In a way I have to admire that.”

“It’s not courage, Dae. Not like your valiant descent from the yard.” Ignoring his sarcasm I raised my eyebrows. “Every creature that’s not positively, determinedly suicidal fights for life out of pure instinct. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it.”

“Why?”

“Oh, the usual piggishness. Greed, in this case; we’re greedy for more time and more pleasure, such as it is: for a few more breaths. And we value ourselves abominably highly. Almost every man – and I daresay every woman – believes their own body to be the most valuable in the world. Even Cooky; even I.”

“Because it houses our soul.”

“If it truly did – and you mean the immortal soul, I presume – we wouldn’t care a jot for our bodies; why should we, when our fundamental essence would outlast them? No, what you mean is consciousness. And consciousness isn’t the soul, Dae; or if it is then the soul is something far removed from what you imagine. It’s trapped in our bodies, tangled in our very cells: and when they go, we go.”

“Then you don’t believe in spirits, ghosts, any of that?” He’d be the first unsuperstitious sailor I’d ever met. Choi shook his head pityingly.

“If such things exist they’re nothing to do with us. Human consciousness is brief and easily snuffed out.”

“If _that’s_ the case, no wonder we value our hides!”

“That’s the point.” Choi nodded to Myungsoo, whining and twitching like a dreaming dog. “For most of us, our subjective value is worth a king’s ransom – but what’s our objective worth? If he died this instant I could replace him and the world would not be worse off; better, in fact, for it would be one less man unemployed and one less mouth to feed. Nearly any man can be replaced at a moment’s notice, from laborer to lawyer. So I must conclude we’re _not_ valuable.” He cocked his head thoughtfully and touched the row of stitches. “And yet I too cling to life, more fiercely than I ever thought.” I ventured the opinion to myself that there was perhaps a great deal of difference between Choi’s objective value as a body and a mind and Myungsoo’s, however carefully I nursed the cook. I was just opening my mouth to voice this thought aloud – which would have been the start of one of our arguments, and right by the invalid’s bed – when a cry came down the hatchway.

“Ship, Captain!” bawled Yankee Jo in his powerful voice. Choi abandoned his point and strode off. For a second he paused in the passageway, staring around, and I grew cold: another blind moment, I was sure. Then he shook his head as if to dislodge the fog from his eyes; apparently he succeeded, because he ran up the ladder like a boy. My forebodings reignited, I followed him.

The Fusan-Maru was approaching steadily to windward across a sea scattered with our boats; one really would have to be blind to miss her, even without the glass. Choi watched her narrowly, in stoic silence; but when she yawed, stopped, and let her own boats down on her windward side he slammed his fist against the rail. I was over at the wheel now but I still jumped.

“That whoreson bastard, he’s going to poach our catch!”

“How?”

“You’ll see,” he said grimly. “It’s exactly what I’d do. Get ready to make sail, we’ll bear down close in case he offers to mess with my boats as well as my seals.” Yankee Jo nodded and took up his station.

In the controlled busyness of bringing the Neukdae about I couldn’t keep my eye on what was happening over on the horizon. When I had leisure to look again I saw our boat-pullers amid the herd and the hunters at their beastly business: rifles, clubs, skinning knives. The pullers kept the boats moving while the seals fled away – and as they did so I realized the Viper had directed his own boats straight towards ours. Before Choi even spoke I knew what would happen.

“See?” he yelled, giving me a push of pure pique and taking the wheel from me as if by reflex. I staggered as usual. “Those fucking sods, the herd’s going to run right into them!” He was right: the desperate seals, fleeing from our pursuit, were heading straight for the fan of the Fusan-Maru’s boats – where they were knocked on the head and picked up easy as you please. Belatedly our hunters understood the trap; in miniature pantomime I saw them begin to mime wildly at one another to leave off. The boat-pullers stopped rowing and floated there uncertainly, aiming gesticulations of disgust at the Japanese craft. “Back!” roared Choi at shattering volume, his deep voice booming across the waves. “It’s no good now! Get back here, you sons of bitches!”

I was watching through the binoculars. Far away on the Fusan-Maru I saw a glint of light: glass gleaming in the sun? Someone was watching us too. At the wheel Choi was pale with anger as our boats milled around, got the message, and turned back towards us. We were approaching directly before the wind at maybe seven knots, a fair clip on that unwieldy point of sail. But there was one boat hovering, close to the retreating seal herd and not yet turned. The glass was snatched abruptly from around my neck and the captain pointed me back at the wheel before clapping the binoculars to his eyes: there was some sort of disagreement happening in that boat, men struggling. We were close enough now that I saw one, the hunter, raise his rifle at the other two, and then I knew what it was. It was Jongkook and Sakurai, and they did not want to come back: they wanted to make a dash for the Fusan-Maru. I didn’t blame them in the slightest; the Viper would certainly take them in, if only to spite Choi. And spiteful he looked as he cuffed Jo for’ard to help set the rarely-used maintopsail so that we bore down on them even faster. The other boats were coming at us, expecting to be picked up, until it became clear Choi had no intention of doing so for the time being. Then they scrambled desperately aside.

“Kim Jongkook!” Choi bellowed over the fo’c’sle. “Touch those oars and you’re a dead man!” The Neukdae shot through the returning boats, clipping one’s stern and overturning it. Open-mouthed, I saw her three occupants emerge from beneath the water to cling to its gunwhale, impotently cursing us; at least they were alive. Their haul had been sunk, but I was sure Choi had temporarily forgotten his indignation at losing the valuable hides to his brother: his entire being was focused on Jongkook, and he looked as alive as I had ever seen him. I genuinely thought he might run us straight into them though I was sure at this moment his vision was perfect, and was watching with horror when he yelled at me to put up my helm; I did so in relief and the Neukdae began spilling her wind as we turned. Yankee Jo looked petrified as we came to hover not twenty feet from the boat.

“Row!” I heard the hunter say to Jongkook, laconically but with his gun still raised. It was Petersen, our American Swede and sole westerner; like most of the other hunters he was only on the Neukdae because no decent ship would have him – probably on the run from god knew what. He grumbled against Choi as much as the next man, but as yet he was too savvy or lazy to think of mutiny. Choi grabbed the shrouds and leaned over the water.

“If I have to drag you aboard,” he shouted down at them, “you’ll god-damn wish I hadn’t!” Behind them the Fusan-Maru’s boats were industriously murdering their haul; they seemed confident that they need not fear reprisals just now: the steamer was hovering beyond them, broadside on with the threat of those gun ports a silent warning. Jongkook and Sakurai were glaring up at Choi, bloodless and very near despair. The boat touched and they hooked on; the mate and I cranked away at the bow cable while our captain easily drew up the stern. And as he stared at the would-be runaways and they stared back at him, I had the sudden and deep conviction that they were already dead men walking on deck – and that they knew it too.

* * *

Choi was in a horrid temper all night. The first thing he had done was strike Jongkook, which in actual practice he rarely did. The sailor’s mighty chest heaved and I knew he wanted to fight back, the way Sakurai always did and with doubtless far greater effect.

“ _Please_!” I cried to the big man; I knew Choi would kill him regardless of whether he was truly angry at Jongkook or whether this violent humor was Kwon’s doing. Song and I were holding Sakurai between us, not so much to ensure fair play as to try and stop the boy being murdered right then and there. The rest of the crew was watching, gauging the situation, and to my part relief and part disappointment there seemed a general feeling that Choi still held enough high ground to prevent a full mutiny. Not the moral high ground, of course; merely his astonishing aura of power. What would they do, I wondered in anxiety, if they knew he was losing his sight?

Jongkook listened either to me or to his own good sense, and stood there mute under the beating. Choi looked as though he had half a mind to see if he could get him to make a noise; but perhaps reflecting that there were enough hands out of commission as it was, he refrained after the tenth blow. Then he dismissed everyone to their respective duties and retired to the foretop to brood.

The next morning he appeared a changed man: a smile for me as I came up to relieve Yankee Jo, a satisfied sigh as he sipped his coffee. He gathered his hunters once a herd had been located and gave them some instructions in a low voice before passing out the guns and ammunition; a few of them raised their eyebrows, but nodded. His sight seemed as strong as ever, and his face did not darken even when we let the boats down and the Fusan-Maru materialized to hover on the horizon.

“She’s been dogging us,” Choi told me with a cheerfulness I found highly suspect.

“She’s not going to try the same caper, surely?” The boats set their little sails and danced off into the gray morning; I watched them, and the steamer far beyond them, perplexed: why would Choi let them go to leeward again when he knew his brother was lurking there?

“I expect so.” He stretched. “He does seem to think he’s smarter than me.” I shook my head at the idea. “We may shiver the sails a touch, Dae – I don’t want to get too far ahead.” By the time I had been told how to do this this the boats were among the herd and the slaughter began. The Fusan-Maru nosed a little closer as if taking a look. “Gentlemen,” said Choi to Jo and me, “we have a fortunate breeze this morning, and once she’s dropped her boats and let them get on with it we’re going to come about and get down as close as we can, as quick as we can. Jo, you’re on the helm; we’ll take the sails.”

It was hard to watch as the ship approached, her cloud of steam and coal-smoke trailing; I could tell our distant men were half distracted, and as she lowered her boats again to windward they looked positively belligerent. The Japanese crew came closer to the distressed herd, drawing up into the wind thanks to the boat-pullers’ hard labor, then sat on their oars and waited for the seals to finally understand they must swim for it. At last the unfortunate animals began to move; the Fusan-Maru had retreated far back so as not to frighten them further with her chugging pistons, and as our boats gave chase towards the Japanese line Choi called out the signal to bring the Neukdae about. This was done with some sweating but at an impressive rate, and the schooner, now on her favorite point of sail abaft the quarter, shot along after them.

“What the hell do we do once we get there, sir?!” I exclaimed as the wind rushed through my hair.

“We lay everything along and then go about again, dropping the main and foresail. We’ll lie to just long enough to pick up the boats, and then away!” Choi’s smile was grimly excited though his eye remained calculating, judging the relative speeds, distances, wind and water in a way I could only grope after. While I admired his skill and prepared for this taxing maneuver I wondered exactly why he was taking this course: all he had done was provide the Viper with another free haul.

“Now?” I quavered, alarmed by the rapidly approaching boats, our own and the Japanese all yelling insults at each other amongst the seals. At the wheel Jo was looking mighty anxious; Choi only held up his hand, the other on the first rope that would bring the Neukdae’s foresail boom about and allow us to change direction. I was ready at the mainmast but had to repress a quiver – if we hit the boats at this speed it would be murder!

“Tack!!” roared Choi at an unthinkable distance, and when Jo put his helm down as fast as humanly possible the captain and I released the staysail lines and then the booms. The Neukdae turned, spinning in her own length, and the lethal poles swung across with a force that could dash a man’s skull in: this move was a job for multiple sailors, not two, but I rushed across the deck at a crouch so as not to be beheaded and hauled on the opposite rope to bring the boom to heel; the kick-back almost tore my arms from my sockets. “Thus!” Choi shouted and I made it fast with my useful new muscles. We had turned, and with the necessary dropping of the topsails we now had very little way on us. “Dae, take over the wheel,” Choi instructed. Only once in position did I have time to look to the boats.

The Fusan-Marus were staring up at us as if we were utter madmen, which I quite understood: if it had been me I would probably have soiled myself. One or two boat-pullers were trying to move off, men with good instincts for danger; but just at that moment Choi called out and our hunters all stood up in their boats, rifles aimed at the Japanese sailors. My jaw dropped. One of Kwon’s hunters raised his own gun among the frozen men – some of whom had put their hands up – then dropped back into his boat, clutching his shoulder. I looked for’ard, and there at the rail were Choi and Yankee Jo, their own rifles targeting Kwon’s crew; Choi’s gun was smoking.

“Tell that Viper to try it again,” shouted Choi over the curses of the injured man, a hint of the snarl rising, “and see who pays for it!” So this was his plan, and it explained why he hadn’t told me – of course he didn’t trust me to point a rifle at an innocent man. But it was a plan that spited himself as much as Kwon! We would never get more hides out of this herd, because beyond our nautical standoff I saw with dread that the Fusan-Maru had twigged what was happening, and she was coming for us as fast as ever she could.

“Sir!”

“I see her.” Not that that was so fast: although the steamer had no care for the wind she was not a nimble vessel, and in the time it took to turn her the Neukdae had regained some of her way: the boats were rowing alongside, and as each one kissed the side we sent the cables down and heaved them inboard. But the Fusan-Maru drew closer, closer, until we could see her remaining crew on deck. Choi was very busy barking orders and keeping a rifle aimed at the nearest Japanese boat, forcing the puller to row or be shot, but occasionally I had time to see him dart a searching glance at the ship; and she had come up so far now I feared that we would all have a frighteningly close look at her before we could get away. “Topsails and jibs!” called Choi when the last of our boats was coming up the side, and the hands leapt to set them. And then, before the Neukdae could gain speed, he gestured with the rifle at the Fusan-Maru’s boat. “Hook on!” he demanded. The hunter shook a fist at him. “Hook on or die,” said Choi more calmly, and the reputation of the Wolf was such that they did so, the boat-puller almost breaking his oars as he tried to keep up with the schooner while the other two men sullenly attached the davit cables.

This was the final straw for the Fusan-Maru, it seemed, or perhaps it was just that we were within range at last. We were still gaining speed and she couldn’t block our fleeing path. But she yawed, turning cumbrously as if in slow motion, and my heart leapt to my throat as I saw her gun ports open and the Russian cannons run out. Was she trying to persuade us to drop her boat? To lie to and wait for her to bear up? Surely the Viper wouldn’t actually…

“Port your helm!” barked Choi, and goggling I turned the wheel hand over fist to make it spin. To my dismay some way fell off the Neukdae, and at the same time I heard two deep reports, one after the other, that echoed around the sea. One ball vanished, I couldn’t say where, but the other sped across the deck with a dull ‘ _whomph_ ’ some distance above my head, shaving a score of wood out of the mainmast. Choi bared his teeth in the direction of the steamer. He took the wheel from me and set the ship back on her course, her speed increasing with the characteristic skip she gave at this point off the wind. But the Fusan-Maru, though sluggish to begin, was not a stationary object and the deep, ominous rumble of her engine reverberated through our rigging as she gave chase. There were perhaps two hundred yards between us, and she steamed along to leeward, unworried by the weather gage which would normally give one sailing ship advantage over another, until her guns could be trained round far enough to bear.

“That fucking Viper wants to knock our spars away,” Song growled beside me. None of the hands had gone below, which I considered brave until I understood that maneuvering the Neukdae swiftly and surprisingly might be our only way out of this mess.

“He can’t! It’s practically an act of war!” But the cannon fire was aiming better, at our ropes and yards, and if the schooner was dismasted and a heavy sea got up she would be helpless – not to mention the certain death for any man who stopped a ball. Truly, Kwon seemed a match for his brother, at least in willingness for violence. And perhaps the Japanese authorities back home wouldn’t chastise him if he used it – perhaps they wouldn’t much care what happened to an elderly Korean ship! A renegade without a license, at that. The thought that they could do anything they liked to us chilled me; but in the meantime Choi was steering with great skill, jigging and veering as best he could to confuse the Fusan-Maru’s guns.

“That gunner on the left isn’t expert,” he told me through a clenched grin of both anger and elation. “But the right, that’s the Viper pointing it! The bastard…” This was obviously not the time to mention that Choi could claim no moral advantage – the Japanese boat had finally been heaved aboard and its three hands marched down at gunpoint – so I settled for:

“Do you think he’s really trying to kill us?!”

“The difference between my brother and I,” said Choi, ducking as a shot hit the companionway and sent wicked long splinters careening across the deck, “is that when he really gets angry he loses all reason.” I decided this was not the time to inform him it wasn’t much of a difference.

“So what do we _do_ , sir?”

“Run and regroup – if we can.” I swallowed: the great disadvantage of sail had never been clearer to me. If we ran to leeward before the wind we would run smack into the other ship; we couldn’t sail directly away from Kwon, no rigged vessel can aim into the wind’s eye. The only thing for it was to beat up in a series of long diagonals – while the Fusan-Maru could come after us in a straight, lethal line. “We’ll put her about!” Choi announced to Yankee Jo even so. The sailors knew where our hope lay and they were at their stations, watching the Viper’s ship with pale faces.

“Ready about!” bawled Jo, and we were off at a different angle.

Thus began a petrifying period of time in which we dodged the Fusan-Maru’s gunfire, beating up into the wind, tack upon tack until I lost all sense of direction and duration; it might have been hours. After a while the other ship stopped firing – she probably had a finite number of shot – and exercised all her concentration in getting alongside us at point-blank range. This was the one thing Choi was determined she should not do, and for once the crew was entirely with him: I saw Sakurai trimming the headsails eagerly, Jongkook’s splendid muscles hauling in the booms as we tacked. For the first time ever we were a united ship. But I knew it couldn’t last.

“The wind’s dropping!” called someone. There were sounds of consternation: it would make the going less hard, but also less fast – and if we were becalmed we were done for.

“Yes,” said Choi, jerking a thumb sternwards with a grim glint in his eye. “But take a look.” We all looked: behind us, behind the Fusan-Maru, stole one of the familiar banks of fog. “We’ll put ourselves in there, and good luck to that noisy tub finding us again.”

“But…the other ship’s in the way!” I pointed out dismally.

“Right. So we need to surprise her – that is to say, we need to turn fast as lightning and run past her before she can get more than a few shots in.”

“Tacking or jibing will take too long!”

“Yes,” said Choi firmly, raising his voice a little for the eavesdropping hands near the helm. “So I’m going to club-haul her.” Several of the veteran sailors’ expressions changed almost comically at this to sincere dismay. The bosun hurried aft, white as his sailcloth.

“You can’t do that in deep water!!”

“We’re near St. Lawrence, aren’t we? It could be under fifty fathoms!”

“ _Sir_ -”

“No,” Choi countered fiercely, “it might work if we cut loose fast enough – and if it doesn’t it doesn’t, the deep-sea anchor was ruined in the storm anyway. You and Song stand by to drop and cut.” The bosun gave him a wild-eyed stare then dashed away, now the color of old cheese. “Kim Jongkook!” The bruised giant sprang up. “You know how to do this?”

“Yessir, I’ve seen it!” Jongkook’s eyes were gleaming almost like Choi’s – for this brief surreal moment they could have been brothers themselves, and I gathered with perturbation that a desperate move was in the offing. Jongkook dashed off and began pushing sailors into place.

“Hold on and watch this, Dae,” Choi ordered before hallooing instructions to the seamen who were to pull on ropes at stated times, and if they were slow Choi would feed them to the Viper himself! There was a moment of tension, of silent anxiety, before he bellowed: “Let go bow anchor!” The bosun and his team did so immediately, with a wet smash as the misshapen mass of metal plunged into the water followed by the sound of the great cable veering out at top speed. To me this looked like madness, and the bosun and Song standing by with axes only made it worse. Another moment, long and full of noise – then I was flung forward from my hold and sent crashing to the deck as the strain coming abruptly onto the anchor cable, run out to its bitter end, made the Neukdae stagger hard enough to break a man’s neck and immediately checked her way. It didn’t stop her, the anchor could have barely kissed the bottom at best, but it was an almighty drag on her speed. The sound of timbers protesting and cracking deafened me – Choi was listening with utmost attention – and at almost the same instant the ship began to turn towards the dragging anchor, spinning us a hundred and eighty degrees in a fraction of the time it could possibly take to jibe round.

“Captain?!” cried the bosun as we reached the half-circle and were in imminent danger of drifting right back to where we had begun.

“Cut!!” yelled Choi, and the bosun and Song attacked the anchor cable with axes and desperate speed: it parted, and there we were with way still on us, pointing back in almost exactly the direction we needed to go: straight before the wind and past the Fusan-Maru.

Yankee Jo and Jongkook were leaping about, directing the hands to quickly set and trim every sail that would draw, sheeting home the square topsails so our speed increased and sent us bowling along in the moderate breeze into the teeth of the Fusan-Maru. As we drew abreast we all stopped breathing: nothing. I think her hands were as astonished as I had been to see us spin like a top, and when the guns finally boomed out we were on our way astern and one ball simply passed through the mainsail. Another round knocked off some of the Neukdae’s painted name on her stern, and then we were too far past for the guns to bear without the other ship turning. This she began immediately but her squat lines made her wallow, and as we shot away we gave a thin but spontaneous cheer. All except Choi, who was watching the Fusan-Maru on one hand and the fog bank on the other with stern pleasure. In her bows I caught sight of a small pale figure, leaning over the water as if his sheer will could drive the steamer on. I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell from Choi’s feverish complexion and private snarl who it was.

The Fusan-Maru had worn at last and was coming up on our tail; we had all turned to face her, stomachs in knots as her engines belched like hellfire. And then she was gone: faded away like the vanishing vision Choi thought he had experienced before. We had made it.

As we entered the fog the world changed: we were cocooned in a muffled cloud of wet air, the sound and breeze dampened so the square sails hung limp.

“She’ll follow us,” said Choi quietly, beckoning us over to the wheel. “After she picks up her boats. The bank can’t be that big, she’ll pursue and start the chase full speed once we get out the other side. So we shall veer off at an angle, turn – jibing this time, slow and quiet – and come out the way we came in; and let’s hope she’s not waiting for us.” The bosun and Jo nodded, so I did too. “Any man who shouts or makes a racket,” he warned us, “I’ll beat him to death. No lights, no foghorn, no gunfire. Tell the hands.”

And so we did it. As a plan it could not have been more unlike the Wolf’s fearless, damn-it-all personality, this silent sneaking off. From what he’d told me it was more Kwon’s style, and perhaps that’s why it worked: the Viper didn’t imagine his brother would think of such a thing. We emerged from the fog, dripping and chilled and petrified, into a gray and rainy world that contained no other ship from horizon to horizon. There was another weak cheer, very soft, but we didn’t dare raise our voices until we were hours away in a quite different part of the sea, under a sweet clear night with phosphorescence rippling off the ship’s bows. Looking at the beauty of the empty ocean around us we relaxed. All of us except Choi, of course, who handed off the wheel to one of the steerers and took me below to explain to the Fusan-Maru’s furious boat crew the advantages – and distinct, pressing disadvantages if they disagreed – of hunting seals for the Neukdae.

“If he opens fire on me again,” Choi told me later, passionate color in his tanned face, “he’ll wish he’d stayed fishing for mackerel on Ulleungdo.” Then he closed his eyes and turned away from the light, and my heart fell.

As we crept into the night and our routine returned to its depressing normality I wondered if Choi was pleased: nothing brings home the state of being alive like a cannonball past the ear. And I wondered, having at last encountered Kwon the Viper’s brand of brotherly love, how dearly we might have to pay for our new boat crew.

* * *

_That louse_! Jiyong threw off his pea-coat and dropped into his chair, running both hands through his wet hair and finding that they were trembling. The Fusan-Maru had emerged from the fog drenched but ready, shot for the guns and cartridges for the rifles at hand. The remaining boat crews were furious and frightened – hauling them aboard as they came tacking breathlessly up had wasted a deal of time and he hadn’t made a secret of his feelings – and ready to blow the stuffing out of any part of the Neukdae that presented itself. And when the fog had cleared away they’d seen…nothing. No schooner, no other ships, just the far-distant hump of St. Lawrence that told them they were perilously close to Russian territory and would have to run South. Choi had vanished.

None of the men had wanted to speak to Jiyong, even to get near him after that, and had merely stood there looking bovine and waiting for him to give an order. But what order? Where could she have gone? Along for’ard Jiyong could hear the Fusan-Marus having their dinner, the usual bestial racket; how could he think like this?

“Stow that noise!” he yelled. He was obliged to repeat himself, poking his head into the passageway; damn his light voice and their din. Eventually there was silence. Jiyong saw Ueno pop up and glance at him hopefully – as if he had the slightest clue what to do now! Head back to where the herd had been, that was the sensible choice, and in previous years he had made it after Choi gave him the slip. Profit, that was what they were here for, and the seal numbers were thin enough without leaving a perfectly good batch of them behind – besides, Choi had a two-week head start on him already. But Jiyong couldn’t give the command. There was the loss of a more-or-less competent boat crew, to begin with: it could not be borne, not if he wanted to maintain his reputation. And beyond that… They’d been so close to the Neukdae today, closer than ever before, and even without his binoculars Jiyong had seen Choi’s unmistakable back, the ridiculous old-fashioned topknot and the curve of one of his ears. The sight had fired his animosity such that he could scarcely draw breath – and now he could not leave Choi unpunished. Jiyong sat back down and considered: what had the bastard done with himself?

That ridiculous almost-club-haul – never attempted in deep water by any man in his right mind, it shouldn’t have worked! – was so very Choi: daring and direct and, once Jiyong was over the shock, fairly obvious for him. But then the man had abandoned his natural forthrightness and taken to Jiyong’s own tactics: quiet and careful, creeping and unseen. It offended him almost as much as the barefaced theft of his boat crew – what right did Choi have, to presume to know Jiyong well enough that he could rummage around in his brain?!

On the other hand…say he _was_ trying to outsmart Jiyong on his own terms. What would Choi have expected the younger man to do if the tables were turned? Jiyong leaned forward, pulled out his charts, and began to trace the course most likely to be taken by a thoroughly sneaky mind.

* * *

“There’s to be a blow,” said Yankee Jo the next morning, as he handed the watch to Choi at a distance of perhaps half a mile from a particularly large seal herd. “Such a blow!” I saw the hands glance at each other, then at the blue sky.

“When?” someone asked the mate. Jo’s eye for the weather was almost uncanny – he said he could smell it – but this tended to decrease when he’d had a secret drink.

“Can’t tell,” the older man replied with a self-consciously mysterious air. “Depends.”

“Jo!” We all cringed slightly as Choi’s bark brought us back to our duty. We were exhausted from the previous day’s fight and flight; he alone was energized, though in a way I didn’t exactly like; I suspected he had passed a bad night, but whether it was due to his brother’s attentions or his own blinding headaches I couldn’t tell. He surveyed our variously bruised, fractured, and splinter-hit visages for a long and silent second, then ordered: “Boats away.” And, pointing at the Japanese sailors: “You too. And if you think to run just remember what this ship can do – and what I can do.” They got at least the drift of this speech and nodded, pale and grim.

The boats slipped off under an increasingly dark blue sky. I had never seen it that color before; then again I saw new things every day that landsmen could only imagine, and presently Choi passed me the glass to see even better.

“Any sign of my damn brother’s ship?” We were coasting gently after the boats at a distance; the wind had dropped to a lulling whisper and apart from Jo’s metallic snore where he’d fallen asleep on the battered companionway the only sounds to be heard were the creak of wood and the lap of water. It was a perfect day for spotting ships, but Choi, at the wheel, was leaving it to me. In ordinary times – not that such times existed under the Wolf – I would assume this was simply delegation. Now Choi was peering hard at me, waiting for my word; and I knew, though it went unspoken, that it was because he could no longer see that far. There was something so forbidding about his expression that I could tell it wasn’t an ordinary question, and I didn’t dare raise the topic of his injury.

“…Nothing,” I said casually after a careful sweep. “The boats at work – the Japanese one too.”

“Good.” The Neukdae pitched gently, then a little higher. Other than the fact that almost everyone in those boats wanted to murder our captain it was a peaceful day.

“Lunch, sir?” I said a couple of hours later after a quick sickbay check. “Ham’s making…well, I’m not sure, but it smells edible.”

“Bring it up,” Choi ordered. “I won’t go down; the swell’s rising.” He was right, and the schooner was soon giving her lively little skip as the waves passed beneath her. I served lunch – fish fritters, caught during the night watch – and we ate with our hands from tin plates. Every so often I checked the horizon all around, and never was it nicked by a steamer’s funnel or anything else. Choi bolted his food in an abstracted way, then said: “You’d better tell Ham to put the galley fires out, Dae, and we’ll get storm gaskets on the topsails if we can; I think Jo was right.” I glanced at the still-comatose figure and then at the sky: a rich rich blue.

“How so, sir?”

“A feeling.” The palm of his left hand was resting atop the wheel, interpreting the vibrations in a way I was only just beginning to learn. “There’s an odd motion here. Wake him up and we’ll see what the old sot says.” I did this by the time-honored method of dousing Yankee Jo with a bucket of almost-arctic seawater in the face; like most sailors he sprang to his feet instantly to look for the emergency, and I believed he had found it. His graying eyebrows drew together and he glanced to the sails. “You weren’t mistaken, Jo?” called Choi.

“Nosir.” The mate pointed a finger starboard, to the East. “Oh, no indeed. Tail end of a typhoon, maybe.” On the far horizon, at the edge of that deep blue, emerged a beautiful bank of orange, turning sable at its center; it looked almost like the heart of gunfire, frozen in time. Choi nodded, though I was sure he couldn’t see: he had known by feel alone how much trouble we were about to be in. The light air freshened a little, then fell; it was still the most beautiful day.

“Prepare to go about,” he told us, and after I had called down to warn Ham we jumped to. “Headsails down first.” We quickly took in the jibs, it would be easier to tack without dealing with them. “Ready about!” Between the three of us we managed the turn quite nicely in the leisurely breeze, set and trimmed the sails again with all the storm preparations we had time for, and began to run down towards the boats. “As soon as they’re in range,” Choi directed me, “signal. I want them to come in, full load or not.” Another gust of wind filled the sails, and he added darkly: “although they may not need any signal before long.”

We had gone maybe fifteen minutes when the white sails fell into shadow; it slid all the way down to the deck, and as the darkness struck I looked aft: the horizon had caught up with us, orange and black and moving with dreamlike speed in our direction. Then things started happening so fast I can no longer remember the order. We took in everything but the fore and mainsail, I raised a signal flag and called to the boats through a loud-hailer to come in; when none of them answered Choi gave me the gun cabinet key and I fired a rifle. The nearest, still far away, seemed to hear its report: their steerer turned and gestured as the shadow of the storm swept over him. Then it hit us.

It was hard enough for the Neukdae to make headway in that sudden blast; the wind was wicked and not on her best quarter, so we seemed to be advancing on the boats at a stroll – but such a hard-won stroll! And wickeder still was the sea, which progressed from a high swell to an even procession of cresting rollers, the boat-pullers rowing at a superhuman rate to make any advance toward us. I could see our Number One boat, the Fusan-Maru’s just behind it, but the rest were hidden by the sudden downpour that swept the decks. The rain whirled as the wind veered and we were jogged off course, and Jo ran to help Choi at the helm. With gritted teeth and a damn-you defiance of the storm he kept us on course for the boats.

The Japanese boat was coming up fast, two men rowing while the other bailed and roared at us, water from the crashing wavetops filling it as fast as he emptied it. In this murky unnatural twilight they could have escaped us easily; but their one thought now was to save themselves. They hooked on after a precarious minute that almost smashed the boat to bits against the Neukdae’s hull, and Choi managed to hold the wheel while Jo and I prepared the hoist. The boat-puller and steerer hand-over-handed it up those cables with the seas lashing at their legs, and we all four heaved the boat in.

“Make fast!” shouted Choi. “Double breeching!” I relayed this in Japanese, and while the sailors tied their boat tight to the schooner’s deck we set her on course for our Number One. We had an even more anxious time getting it aboard, but at least by then we had a fair number of hands to work the ship. Selfish, I know, to worry about our own comfort when our men were still out there beyond those waves, which were rising even steeper and losing their pattern as the wind blew like a mad thing round the compass. I spared a glance for Choi: his face was full of water and his eyes were almost closed, and even had he been sight-perfect there was barely anything to see – he was sailing by instinct alone and obviously had no time to worry himself with thoughts of selfishness. His teeth were gritted, and when the thunder began he roared back at it.

Being a humble mortal I wiped the lenses of the binoculars with my dripping shirt – marginally better – and stood woven into the rigging, trying to compensate for the wild pitch and roll of the ship.

“There!” I screamed, pointing: the white flash of a gunwhale, or had it only been sea-foam?

“Where?” Choi demanded. I kept my arm up for the sake of the other hands but shouted directions at him. He gave orders, Jo and I relayed them, and we bounced and crashed across the sea until we could all see the boat – but to my dismay only two men were in it, the hunter and steerer, and try as they might they could not bring it up to us. When Choi realized this he issued another volley of instructions that called for intricate, perfectly timed trimming, so that by the time the tiny vessel was under our lee we were all sweating as much as we were rained on and the men in the boat were crying with relief. We lost the boat itself, but we saved them.

Twice more we did this, each time worse than the last. One man had been hit in the head when a freak gust of wind snapped a rope and sent the mainsail boom hurtling round in a deadly jibe; he was alive but probably concussed, and I counted him lucky. Another man had mangled three fingers when his boat trapped them against the schooner’s side, but I had no time to tend to them, just sent them below for a minute to let Ham comfort them with the relative lightness of their injuries compared to his. And when all was made fast I offered a prayer of partial but very grateful relief.

“Five!!” I roared to Choi. In a flash his taut master-of-the-waves expression transformed, broad brows drawing down and his large eyes narrowing even further.

“Five?!” With the Japanese boat we should have had seven. “Who’s missing?!” A pause and I realized.

“Number Three boat, sir! Song’s! And…”

“Sakurai and Kim Jongkook!” Choi’s great voice hurled across the deck, loud enough to carry to the bowsprit. “Who saw them last?!” Silence beneath the howling weather while I tried desperately not to imagine the worst, what seemed the obvious in these terrible seas: that their boat had foundered. If it did there would be no hope for them – they couldn’t drift about in a life-ring as I had, through gentle waves. One short minute and they would be gone. “Well?”

“…They was on the far edge of the herd,” one of the hunters admitted, staggering up to mumble-bawl into Choi’s ear. “Then when the blow began they kinda slipped our notice! And last I saw they had the sail up.”

“Up?” cried Choi. And, as the hunter nodded and the other sailors glared at the man wickedly: “Running with the wind. _Running_.” I knew what he thought then: he thought they were taking this one perilous chance to at long last slip his stranglehold. And I was sure he was right; there had to be other ships out there, solid steamers casting for their own boats, who according to custom would pick them up. It wasn’t much of a chance – but as I caught sight of Choi’s face and saw the Wolf rise to the surface I thought that for them it was a chance worth taking. I had known that _something_ , some decisive conflict was bound to happen between those men and our captain; they were trying to escape him while they still could. Choi looked swiftly at the Neukdae’s trim and beyond it at the tormented sky: blinked, grimaced – his head, I was certain – then stood with his eyes closed, feeling his way. “All hands!” he yelled a few awful seconds later. “Put her before the wind!” An even worse pause while the men stood frozen: they knew what he wanted to make us a part of.

“Leave them, please!!” I begged, jostling up to the wheel. And then, appealing to any value he might have for his own skin: “You’ll never find them in this weather! Something’ll carry away, and then how will you fix the Viper?! We’ve got these extra hands now, sir, why go looking for two who won’t work hearty anyway? Focus on the storm – and Song, the ones who actually need our help!” He had forgotten them as soon as he thought he might lose the two men whose lives he’d been toying with since we got here.

“Fuck Song!” I sank away, in despair: he was in one of his passions now, his huge eyes alive and snapping even if they no longer worked perfectly – and there was no stopping him. He fixed those eyes on our crew, one by one, crowned by the storm at his back. And they fell into place; perhaps because running with the wind full on our stern was the safest way to ride this out, perhaps entirely because of the power that seemed to shoot through him from the thunder. Choi gave the word and even I jumped to it. And so we began to chase the Neukdae’s only decent men.

We caught up with them in a sea so mountainous and under a sky so filled with lightning we could only make out where we were going in short-second bursts when we crested a wave or the sky lit up; the rest was constant driving chaos, the only slight relief being that the wind, while strengthening, was at least blowing in one direction now. The Neukdae was pelting South-West under a scrap of foresail for balance, and even so was making perhaps twelve or thirteen knots. I’m sorry to say my first thought was for my own hide; but beyond it I had a faint hope that, if Jongkook’s boat still swam, we might miss them: even when lightning blazed across the sky restoring a moment’s daylight most of the hands were too frantically busy to stand lookout, and I was convinced by now that Choi would not be able to see unless they were very close.

Thus I felt a vivid pain in my chest as I spied the boat, there and vanished out to larboard, then there again on the height of the wave. Their sail was gone – furled or lost – and so was Petersen their hunter. I couldn’t see Sakurai clearly but I suspected he’d pushed the man over; an uncharitable thought, but I was convinced the Japanese sailor would have done literally anything rather than board the Neukdae again. He was steering and Jongkook was rowing with all his might like the great tiger he was; a bolt of lightning lit the surface of the sea and I saw him turn his head and catch sight of us – the poor, poor man. The only way I could save them was to keep my mouth shut, so I looked away and returned to my urgent tasks.

“There!!” screamed boat Number One’s hunter a minute later, and as he said it I could have killed him where he stood. Choi stiffened like a hound with the scent at last. He looked but I couldn’t tell if he could see the tiny boat – he didn’t need to. He simply eased his grip on the wheel a bit and let the schooner fall off into her natural leeway, speeding forward and sideways now on a course that would lay her just in front of the fleeing men. When we were close enough and he caught sight of them and their terrible position he didn’t grin or snarl; he merely nodded, his eyes quite merciless. And to my abject horror I realized I could not do it: I couldn’t let this happen. Abandoning my place I ran across the deck, almost dashing myself down the companionway as the Neukdae gave an unexpected and violent bound. I made sure I was not close enough for Choi to reach me – but close enough for him to see what I was holding.

“If you hurt them again,” I cried, the rifle locked and pointing at his head, “I’ll kill you!”

“Will you though, Dae?” said Choi fiercely but without fear, as if I were an irritating wasp to be brushed off. I took a careful step closer; if he let go the wheel to grab the gun now the ship might not survive it, so he didn’t.

“I will.” Between wrestling with rope and canvas and fighting for sight in the tempestuous gloom I knew everyone was staring at me: as if I was insane, yes; but, I thought, maybe with hope. And no-one came forward to stop me.

“All right,” Choi called over the thunder, still peering leeward at the boat. “If you get back to work I promise you – I won’t touch a hair on their heads!”

“You _promise_?” I demanded. Choi had never actually lied to me, and while I was suspicious I believed him – for now. It was either that or put a hole in _his_ head. He nodded and I returned it slowly, then slung the rifle at my back and ran to my post.

All this time we had been approaching the boat, and now we could see them clear on every rise: Sakurai snarled at the sight of the Neukdae and Jongkook kept doggedly rowing, trying to win some distance, bellowing with the effort. But it was also clear they were in a desperate way: Sakurai was trying to steer and bail frantically at the same time, and I knew Jongkook, however valiant, was only human – how long could they keep this up? By then Choi had maneuvered us directly in front of them and we were all flying before the wind: they could no more move away from us than they could go straight up in the air. It was either toward us or down. In this position Choi could choose to pick the men up with ropes over the stern – the boat would be lost but it would save their lives – or abruptly heave to, something the Neukdae excelled at, in which case the tiny vessel would come barreling into her hull and smash itself to matchsticks.

“They want to come in!” yelled Tokko as an enormous wave crashed against the schooner’s stern. I squinted my reddened eyes and saw Sakurai of all people waving at us wildly, with unmistakable gestures: they knew as well as we did that their boat – still afloat only by some miracle – couldn’t swim much longer; it was either certain death by drowning or probable death by Wolf. And, as always, Choi was right: they knew the pain and misery this choice would bring, and still their instincts drove them to live.

“Lower the foresail!” Choi roared at me. “Just leave a scrap on!” I gave the orders in a hoarse shout and the Neukdae’s headlong pace decreased.

“Ropes to the stern,” I told the men who could be spared, and several of them surged aft. We stood there clutching the railing, gesturing to the ropes, beckoning the boat to come on. It would be a perilous jump for them to catch hold but our men would heave them in with delight. I was shouting as loud as any of them, I could see Sakurai looking at me as he bailed, when I heard Choi call:

“Raise the foresail.” We all turned to stare at him. “Now, damn you!” he barked, and the men still for’ard jumped to it. The Neukdae skipped and stretched out – as did the distance between us and the boat, from five yards to twenty in just a minute.

“What are you doing?!” I screamed at Choi, daring to strike him hard on the shoulder – he couldn’t let go without risking her swerving.

“Don’t worry.”

“You promised!!”

“I said don’t worry! I want to make them work for it. They heard me warn the Japanese crew – and they ran anyway.”

“That’s what you said about Ham – and remember what happened next?!”

“Dae, either pipe down or shoot me, there’s a good man.” I whirled back to the stern: the boat was even further away now, Jongkook rowing like a hero in a tale, a truly good man. “Sail down!” Choi ordered presently. As the way came off the ship we all roared until we were hoarse, encouraging them with everything we had, although god knows if they heard us. Miraculously they were still afloat in the waterlogged boat and actually approaching again, a Herculean effort that made my heart sing with admiration – but on Sakurai’s pale face I saw only hatred and despair.

“Look!” someone for’ard howled. “It’s old Song!!” And sure enough, far out to leeward and a good quarter of a mile away I saw the other missing boat; this one still had its mast and was bobbing precariously but less desperately across the waves; and it still had all three of its men. “Hurry up, Captain!” the same sailor cried. “Pick these up and let’s beat over for ‘em!” Choi ignored him completely. Jongkook’s boat was perhaps three yards away now, and when they were on the crest and we in the trough of a wave they were at the height of the stern rail.

“Dash for it!!” we screamed.

“Foresail up!” I heard Choi sing out; at the same moment Jongkook turned his head, and when I met his eyes before the wave crashed them back down I saw only hopelessness – a farewell. Before I knew it the gun was in my hands again and touching the back of Choi’s handsome head; he didn’t twitch.

“Belay that order!” I shouted for’ard, and the sail flapped and billowed while the hunters in charge of it paused. “You promised you wouldn’t harm them,” I growled. Choi grunted, struggling mightily with the wheel; Yankee Jo was helping him and was leaning away from my rifle with an amazed expression.

“I promised I’d not touch a hair on their heads,” Choi reminded me. He smiled, the smile that expressed every brutality of life he believed in, almost as hopeless in its way as Jongkook’s face but determined to push on through it. The monster, he hadn’t lied!

“Let them aboard or I’ll kill you.”

“Then do it – it could hardly make my headache worse.”

“I _will_!” But as I said it I knew in my heart that I couldn’t. Here we were at this moment, every social more stripped away, baring the core of me; and I could not kill a man in cold blood. Choi looked at me and perhaps sighed, the thunder rumbling too loud for me to hear. I had disappointed him again and he looked deflated. I saw him open his mouth and hoped to god he would call for the sails to be lowered, that a depression would fall upon him and his violence dissipate for the few minutes it would take to save these men’s lives. Simultaneously there came a concert of cries from the stern. Choi and I spun, leaving Jo to battle with the wheel, and were just in time to see the bow of the tiny boat sink beneath a titanic wave, the lightning that forked the sky illuminating that terrible sight in a series of ghastly still frames. For a brief second I saw a head bobbing there, Sakurai or Jongkook, I didn’t know; then the wave exploded in foam and spray, and it was gone.

Silence fell again among the men, and this time I could no longer hear the waves or wind or thunder. There was only a faint ringing in my ears as I tried to grasp what had happened – what I had _let_ happen. Everyone looked equally dumbstruck, Choi included. In another series of still photos I saw the men beside me at the stern look at each other, look at him. There was an electric pause; then madness descended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've given it a bit more cliffhanger than the book, but this was one of the most harrowing parts of the novel for me. Luckily, we're soon about to diverge and go full GTOP :)
> 
> The club-haul is actually an emergency manoeuvre for sail ships with no engines. It was usually used when by some accident a ship ended up dangerously close to a lee shore (when the wind and tide is drawing you onto the rocks) and there was no room to tack or wear round. You would drop the anchor, and when it caught on the bottom it would drag the ship round; then you'd cut it loose and set the sails, and hopefully be in time to get away from the shore. Very risky and only really done in shallow water!
> 
> [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq0sXv6YeJM) (about minute 2:45) is a cool but slightly unrealistic version from _Pirates of the Caribbean_ \- it's quite dramatic! (Man, that first film was classic! Apart from the dumb romance angle...)
> 
> Anyway, we're right on the cusp of the climax now! (As it were...)  
> Also, this week's art was one of the most satisfying GTOP pictures I've ever drawn!
> 
> Next chapter Jiyong takes his chance at last :)


	6. Good Ship Venus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Wolf and the Viper clash at last - and Daesung gets the surprise of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a long one, but I hope it's interesting ;)
> 
> There's not much in here that's from the novel, we're into the melodrama of the TV version now ^^

The Fusan-Maru was chugging through the storm, laboring in the heavy seas but as comfortable as could be expected. Jiyong had managed to bring his remaining boats in – he had sat practically on top of them until the sky changed, in case Choi had more tricks to play – and now was letting the steamer go at an easy pace. Every so often they would beat riskily to and fro, though it was almost impossible that they could sight the Neukdae in this darkness and spray; so Jiyong kept on in the same direction as the mighty wind because that was where the schooner would _have_ to go.

He hadn’t yet decided what form his revenge would take for the kidnap of his boat, and this bout of weather precluded sustained thought on anything but battening down and trying not to lose more men. Perhaps the storm would do some of his work for him; if Choi kept all his boats in this maelstrom he would indeed have the luck of the devil, and Jiyong might have to start listening to Dong’s sermons. He stood swaying by the man at the wheel, watching the sky light up like cannon fire, and wondered what the screaming wind would leave him to be revenged upon.

“Boat!!” bawled the storm-tossed lookout suddenly, but Ueno had already seen it and was turning to Jiyong. The captain glared and saw nothing; then one of the churning waves dropped down, and on the swell of the next he saw it, maybe a hundred yards off but hidden quickly in the crashing spray.

“Reduce speed!” he yelled to his crew, striding forward to take the larboard side of the wheel. The boat was rowing in the teeth of the wind, though the sea was so rough the men’s oars barely connected with the water in any meaningful way, and it was low: even without disaster another five minutes would swamp it. He snapped instructions to take the way off the Fusan-Maru and get closer, turning her broadside to the boat as she did so; if the sailors could just get into her lee where the wind was flattened by her hull they might make it. The three men were paddling and bailing like fury, their salvation in sight. “Chains and hooks!” Jiyong ordered, and his own boat-pullers ran to lower them from the davits. The boat was close enough now that Jiyong could tell it wasn’t his own missing crew – what a smack in the eye for Choi it would have been if they’d escaped! Neither was it British or American; either Japanese or… Despite the urgency of the situation he felt himself smile.

Once out of the full force of the wind the little boat sprinted over the last twenty yards, a wave dashing them against the Fusan-Maru’s side. Luckily the boat wasn’t stove in, but its sailors were so prostrated with exhaustion they could barely attach the chains that would pull them up. Jiyong nodded and two of his spryer young men were lowered down on ropes, hooked on for them, then scrambled back before a wave took them. At last the boat was raised, half full of water. The three sailors were helped out and collapsed on deck. Jiyong left the management of the ship to Ueno and went to see what he could make of them; as he got a good look at their faces his smile grew more teeth: they were Korean.

“Mr…Kwon…” gasped the only one with breath left to speak. Of course they knew who he was. “Oh, thank you…!”

“You’re from the Neukdae,” said Jiyong. Even if they hadn’t been speaking Korean he would have guessed it: the faces of two of them were covered in bruises. “You understand I won’t give you back?”

“Yessir,” the man panted – the hunter, Jiyong guessed, though his rifle must have been lost at sea.

“Fair is fair, after all; and Choi has _my_ boat.”

“We know, sir, we don’t care! We could’ve made the Neukdae even when the storm hit, but no way – no way on Earth will we ever go back to that hell-ship! I’d rather sink.” The other men growled in agreement. Jiyong was pleased. “We saw him with our own eyes, lettin’ our mates drown – playin’ with his food like an animal! That’s when we steered away before he did the same to us, hopin’ we’d fall in with some sealer, _any_ other…” At this juncture blankets and hot coffee were brought and the sailors began to look more human.

“I guess there’s some ill-feeling aboard,” summarized Jiyong.

“It’s hell.” One of the men, a gruff-looking creature with a graying beard, actually began to shed tears. “We all knew the Wolf was evil, from the first week on board. But now he’s gone plain mad!”

“They tried to scrag him once before,” the hunter added. Jiyong wasn’t surprised about that, or that they had been unsuccessful. “But if he really does let those boys drown… Well, this time they’ll get ‘im. I’m certain of it.”

“Then he’s going to have his hands full.” Jiyong straightened up, a fierce excitement bursting in his chest. He had decided: now or never. Staring across the turbulent sea at where the sailors had come from, he called: “Show me where you last saw her. We’ll bear up slowly until the storm blows out. Then we run to catch her!” It was time he claimed victory once and for all.

* * *

It was hours before they found her. Jiyong had plotted a course that would take him near the possible points where the Neukdae might be, and as soon as the wind calmed a little and a torrential rain deadened the worst of the waves he set the Fusan-Maru full steam ahead, guns primed and every hand that could be spared on lookout. They were eager enough – they were still outraged and wanted their mates back – and Jiyong’s single-minded driving of the ship spurred them on further. They found another boat on their way, empty, no knowing what ship it had belonged to; and at no great distance another steamer. Jiyong signaled, got one of his Americans to ask for news of a schooner; then nothing, a waste of gray sea and tearing high clouds.

In the end the lookouts were unnecessary: Jiyong spotted her, as he had expected all along that he would. At first he wasn’t sure, the silhouette was awry; then he saw she had lost her foremast. It was really her and she still swam! A clutch of excitement gripped him but he pushed it down and surveyed her coolly as they changed course to approach at last. To his surprise she didn’t run but was lying to. Why? Her mainmast was still standing and as long as they’d cleared away any dragging sails and rigging they could make a good attempt to avoid his guns. It was only when he got closer still, close enough to see people through his glass, that he realized this wasn’t just storm damage: something had happened.

“Is it a wreck?!” asked Dong in a suitably awed voice, joining him at the rail, so pleased to be alive that he forgot himself. Jiyong observed the clustered figures in the Neukdae’s waist, none of them making any attempt at a lookout, and pursed his lips.

“…I don’t know. Mr. Ueno, bring us alongside.”

The Fusan-Maru rumbled closer, closer; still no-one paid attention. Jiyong began to feel… not uneasy, he was too excited for that. Perhaps _unbalanced_. At fifty feet he ordered the engines cut, and the steamer glided like a silent squat leviathan onto the Neukdae’s windward side. He was watching carefully for opposition: hunters with rifles, Choi with god knew what. And there was none.

“Out guns,” he ordered quietly. The ship turned and hove to, and stepping to the starboard rail Jiyong hailed the schooner across twenty yards of rippling sea. “Neukdae, there!” Surely the sound of his voice would bring the Wolf roaring to the rail; how long since he himself had heard Choi’s? He wondered if it had changed, but to his suspicion no Choi emerged. Jiyong paused and considered; some of the Korean sailors were gazing over at the Fusan-Maru and her cannon as if she was a picture on a wall. Was this another of his rival’s games? He scowled to himself. “Do you require assistance?” he called through the loud-hailer. “Because you’re about to get it regardless!” A few more heads turned at this announcement, and it seemed to have sparked a bit of life: he could see urgent mumblings across the way. “Two boats down,” Jiyong instructed Ueno. “You stay here; I’ll take the second mate and the biggest hands.” Something strange was happening, and while he wasn’t afraid he had no notion of dashing in unprepared. Ueno gave him a slightly mournful look but did as he said, and Jiyong was lowered in the Number One boat.

“You’ll be careful, sir?!” cried the older Neukdae – Song, he’d said he was called. “There’s no tellin’ what he’ll do!”

“Yes,” said Jiyong coldly. “I know that better than anyone.”

No-one stopped them hooking on to the stern ladder. Jiyong ran up the battered hull of the Neukdae with his cane between his teeth, whipping out his pistol as he stepped aboard to be confronted with a mass of fallen canvas and disheveled men, half of whom were gaping at the Fusan-Maru’s guns and half at him. They looked paralyzed with exhaustion, beaten and torn and at the same time highly combative, and he was glad of his own armed hunters climbing up to join him; but he quickly found their boiling spirits were not directed at him as a voice from the rigging cried out:

“It’s the Viper – his brother! Let him pass!” The crowd came to life and slowly parted, granting him access to the deck. Jiyong gave the sailors a venomous glance: he did not refer to Choi as his brother, not anywhere – nowhere but in the deepest pits of his own mind; the forbidden places in his heart that remembered a time when _Seunghyun_ had been the only name he would ever associate with family.

Then there he was, for the first time in almost twenty years. And when Jiyong actually saw the man before him, dead or unconscious and hanging by his ankles from a skinning hook, bloody as one of their seals, he felt the venom spread from his eyes to his throat. It felt the same, almost, as if another man had stolen his catch. Jiyong had always taken that kind of thing as a personal insult, but this…suddenly his anger was incandescent, although this outcome had been something like what he had hoped for – he could not have come aboard the schooner any other way, and here was Choi practically gift-wrapped for him. That didn’t seem to matter now: he struck out with the cane at the sailor nearest him, too quick to avoid, and heard his nose break. It satisfied him, but only a little.

“Who gave the order for this?” he demanded with a snap. There was no reply, and looking around at their nonplussed, cut-about faces it became clear they all had, with the possible exception of one or two harrowed-looking men hovering at a distance by the stump of the foremast. “ _Is he alive_?” Some flinches at his tone, and a few reluctant nods. The sailors seemed mildly incredulous, as if to say Jiyong would have done just the same in their place; and, to be sure, he would have: the Neukdae’s reputation was the worst on the station, and from what Song and his mates had blurted out two good men had just lost their lives. All thanks to Choi; this was probably the least he deserved. For all that, Jiyong couldn’t imagine how they’d managed it. He fixed his eye on one of the distant figures, the one whose half-decent clothes made him look most like the mate, and imperiously beckoned him over.

“Kang Daesung, Mr. Kwon, second mate,” said the young man miserably; to Jiyong’s surprise he sounded like Dong, the same aristocratic inflection. He shook his head: not important.

“Were you a part of this mutiny?” The other sailors appeared more than worried now – his hunters’ rifles were still turned on them – but Jiyong chose to let them squirm; he had no intention of punishing them, their actions had furthered his purpose – still, they didn’t need to know that. He flicked a glance at the Fusan-Maru: her guns were trained point-blank on the Neukdae and the situation was in hand. Kang looked down at him mournfully.

“No, sir. But I couldn’t stop it.” Or wouldn’t, thought Jiyong privately. He couldn’t see how the man had avoided being knocked on the head along with Choi otherwise. Somewhere he was still amazed they’d got the jump on him at all: even as a child Choi had been quick and strong and clever, and going by his reputation and sailing maneuvers those traits had developed along with his violence to an exaggerated degree. “He let two well-loved men drown – and there was no holding them back.” He looked terribly guilty – remorseful, even. Remorse for what, that was the question. Jiyong would see about that later; Choi came first.

“Cut him down,” Jiyong instructed the crew sharply. He nodded to his own second mate, who had come up the side while he was speaking. “Lower the other boats. Get a few more of our hands aboard and tie us on fore and aft while I sort this fucking mess out.” Taking Kang’s muscled elbow in a light grip he felt the man flinch: sensitive to danger. “Come over here. How did it happen?” he asked, leading him to the starboard shrouds.

“He was almost murdered a month ago,” Kang confided. There was a thud as Choi’s limp body was cut down; he winced. “Banged on the head and thrown overboard.” The look in his eyes was so unusual in conjunction with the thought of Choi the Wolf that it left Jiyong perplexed: almost…sympathy? No, not one of these poor creatures could feel sympathy for that man. Pity, perhaps. The idea of pity being aimed at Choi was so novel Jiyong almost missed Kang’s next words: “…Mr. Kwon, he’s going blind.”

“…Blind?” echoed Jiyong.

“The blow must have affected his brain. I tried to read up on it but there aren’t enough medical books aboard. I’m not sure he can see anything at all now.” Kang gulped. “It’s the only reason they got the better of him this time: one of them smashed him in the head again and I think it shot his sight for good and all. It’d been brewing longer than that, though, and I don’t blame them. They swarmed him as soon as he let that boat sink; he fought them off and fought them off, you know he’s a beast, even blind. But…well. It was too much for flesh and blood to bear.” He gestured helplessly to Choi’s comely prone body. “And now you’re here, sir; so maybe it’s all for the best.”

“Yes,” said Jiyong faintly. He pursed his lips. “Yes,” he announced again. “See if you can bring him round, then lock him in his cabin: I’m taking command.” It was a snap decision but one that made perfect sense: he intended to take the Neukdae, and everything in her. His excitement – anticipation – rose so high the intensity became almost unpleasant.

“Sir,” said Kang, and hurried over to his former captain. Jiyong had a boat-puller rouse him out another loud-hailer, gave some brisk instructions to the Fusan-Maru, and a minute later there was a muddle of traffic between both ships, a cacophony of men speaking Japanese and Korean and pidgin English, trying to make themselves understood and clustering round the wounded mast; aboard the steamer a crane was being rigged. Jiyong stood there looking over the Neukdae’s stern, rubbing the weighted head of his cane absently and waiting to see if Choi – _Seunghyun_ , that traitorous little place in his mind supplied – could be revived.

* * *

As soon as I had deposited Choi in his bunk I hurried upstairs to give Kwon the key. I wanted to stay, to check the older man’s wounds and see if I could bring him to full consciousness, but the look on our new captain’s – or should I say captor’s – face warned me against delay. I had seen Choi in a depression and in a rage; but I’d never seen such a look of low-burning habitual anger as the one Kwon Jiyong was wearing. Tokko had been right: he did have a girl’s face, a beautiful oval with catlike eyes and red lips. It seemed a face designed to gaze up admiringly at strong men – yet its expression was something I would be very frightened to see on a woman. The long white scar down his left cheek completed the unsettling picture.

“Thank you,” said Kwon, turning away from Tokko as I came pounding up the ladder to hand him the key. The deck was full of Japanese sailors talking loudly and slowly with ours, and some of the Neukdae’s hands were already aboard the Fusan-Maru – had scarpered quick as ever they could. “Mr…?”

“Kang,” I reminded him.

“We’ll lie to tonight; see that the men are fed. My mate Ueno will give you further instructions.”

“And tomorrow, sir?” I dared to ask. Kwon’s eyes narrowed further.

“That depends,” he said; he clasped the cabin key in his fist and stalked down the ladder.

It was probably unwise of me to eavesdrop, and no doubt unethical – but what was I to do? With Choi barely conscious, perhaps dying, and Yankee Jo already fled to the Japanese ship to join Song and his fortunate mates, I was responsible for our remaining crew: I had to know what would happen. At least that was what I told myself as I crept barefoot and silent down the passageway; it wasn’t that I was scared for Choi. Why should I be? The monster deserved whatever he got, I reminded myself. Whatever the reason, I padded up to Choi’s door – it was shut – and crouched down. Before I could set my eye to the keyhole, however, a loud crash from inside made me leap back, falling on my arse. I waited a few seconds, then righted myself and peered in.

Immediately I saw what the crash had been: Kwon was over by Choi’s bookshelves and had swept a whole pile to the floor. Not a reader, Choi had told me, and clearly not above something petty. For some reason, in the midst of all the greater ugliness I found the destruction of books painful. But I saw he had done it to attract Choi’s attention – to try and make _him_ jump. Because Choi was no longer unconscious, and no longer in his bed: he was lying on the cabin floor as if he had risen and tried to stagger to the door; for more fighting? Either his injuries or his blindness had thwarted him, however, and he’d fallen. He had raised his head weakly at the sound of the books and was looking in their general direction like a dog with its ears pricked – though I doubted he could really see anything. This was confirmed when he said in a quiet, rattling voice:

“Jiyong?” Another row of volumes tumbled; I saw him flinch, which was probably more for the books than himself. Kwon remained quiet another minute. I could see the expressions flowing over Choi’s battered face: suspicion, anger, unease, and a few things I could not parse; but the smaller man’s face was shut to me. At last Kwon said in his light, hateful voice:

“It’s me. How did you know?” Choi swallowed; it took him several seconds of careful breathing to control the great pain he must have been in.

“…I heard your voice. When I was hanging…by the heels. I'd know it anywhere.” Incredible: his resilience was truly prodigious. Kwon stiffened; he’d thought to have the element of surprise, I suppose.

“Can you see me?” Choi let out a bitter chuckle that became a cough.

“I can see…” Kwon looked alarmed at that. “…About a foot in front of my face,” said the older man after a pause that may or may not have been deliberate. I heard Kwon exhale in a whoosh, and no doubt his brother heard it too: beneath his injuries his face was mildly triumphant. But minor triumphs were all he could have over Kwon now. Clearly sensitive in the extreme to being made game of, Kwon’s small face darkened and with his heavy cane he decimated the rest of the nearest bookshelf, not in uncontrolled anger but with the spite of a man who knows where to stick the knife. I saw Choi sigh to himself; but I was watching carefully and he was as alert as his condition allowed him to be – if Kwon strayed within his grasp I thought he might find the strength to do him real harm with those hands, mauled about though they were. Evidently Kwon was quite aware of this: he skirted round him and went over to his desk. The chair was lying on the floor but the surface itself looked undisturbed.

“All these toys,” said Kwon with a sneer, examining the painstaking charts and modern sextant. “You always had ideas above your station.” With an abrupt smash he brought the head of his cane down on Choi’s invention, the beautiful navigational instrument he had toiled over almost happily. At the sound of breaking glass I saw Choi wince deeply and let out a growl that quickly became a groan: I knew whatever heart he’d had left after childhood had been poured into these things, these books and devices, and pragmatic though he was – and survival situation though _this_ was – my own heart in that moment ached for him. Then again, hadn’t he done the same to other men, breaking their bodies, the most valuable thing they owned?

“Jiyong,” said Choi again. “What do you want?” Kwon eyed him almost brightly; I supposed this was the victory over his brother he had always dreamed of, a contest longed for across the years and finally realized.

“I want everything, of course,” the younger man told him simply. “For the time being, though… Your men – they don’t seem to love you, by the way – told me you keep a secret treasure somewhere in here.” At that Choi’s blind eyes widened, and I must admit mine did too, I’d been curious so long. I supposed Song had been gossiping – I’d spied him on the Fusan-Maru’s deck. “What is it?” continued Kwon. “Gold? Something better?” Choi had always insisted that he loved profit above almost anything, but the family trait seemed even more pronounced in his brother.

“There’s no ‘treasure’ in here – what do you think this is, a story book?”

“When did I ever have story books?” snapped Kwon, and took aim at the desk again. He was openly angry now, taking it out on the wood until the splinters flew – that cane was a lethal weapon, even in such fine-boned hands. Choi listened with gritted teeth, and I was sure the whole edifice, perhaps the entire cabin, would be demolished before Kwon calmed down. He had better control of himself than I thought: finally noticing the unobtrusive desk drawer he yanked on it and found it locked. He tried it with the room key, visibly excited, pitching the key aside when it didn’t fit. He regarded the ruined desk for a moment, head on one side like a bird; then he dealt the drawer one vicious blow with the cane, stoving it in. “Now,” he exclaimed, yanking it out bodily so papers flew into the air like giant snowflakes. Choi exhaled painfully.

“…No gold, you see?” he muttered; and, as if trying to draw the other man’s attention back to himself: “How _simple_ you are still.” It worked, in a fashion: Kwon strode over, staying well out of range, and brought his cane down on Choi’s shoulder. Choi grimaced – his only concession to the no doubt acute pain – and rolled over. He tried to rise but couldn’t manage it alone; Kwon scoffed at him, kicked him back down before he could command his limbs, and returned to the contents of the drawer: perhaps there were bills, valuable paper money. I saw him pick one sheet up and set it carefully aside; I couldn’t get a good look at it but guessed it might be the deed to the Neukdae. He crouched down elegantly and went on, but I could see him growing frustrated: it appeared there were no riches here. I had never supposed there would be, and yet I felt a little crestfallen – I’d wanted to know so badly! Besides, the Wolf still had my money. Choi was silent again, listening carefully, perhaps hoping his brother had missed whatever it was.

Then Kwon turned to rise, and as he did so he froze, his face changing. With an expression of profound surprise he picked up a piece of card that had flown under the chair and stared at it. The expression turned to disbelief – and then slowly to disgust.

“…What’s this?” he said in a tremulous voice, rising to his feet. At his tone Choi flopped down loose against the boards and let out a deep, resigned sigh as if it were all over now. This was it, this must be his treasure! I craned in frustration but couldn’t make it out.

“You know what it is,” he replied evenly. Kwon’s pale face had gone a furious pink.

“Where the _hell_ did you get it?!”

“Stole it,” Choi said promptly. “From that Japanese photographer staying with the postmaster.” Jiyong hissed in a breath, then stopped, swallowing down whatever tirade he’d been about to embark upon. A photograph? I almost popped my eyeball out trying to see, but the angle was all wrong.

“…I forgot he even took it,” said Jiyong in a low, shocked voice. “Dad caught me slacking, after; he must have beaten it out of my head.” His face turned poisonous, perhaps at the memory, and he thrust the photograph in Choi’s direction, forgetting in his ire that he couldn’t see. “I hate it,” he announced passionately. “Why did you want it? Why did you _keep_ it?!”

Now I could just about see the cause of his upset. It was an inoffensive picture enough; in fact by most people’s standards it might be pleasant to look at: a faded photograph of two Korean boys in peasants’ clothing of the late nineteenth century, one tiny, one taller, and both whip-thin. The older boy was holding a fishing net in one hand and the younger boy’s hand in the other. They were standing very close together looking unsmilingly at the camera, and although they were clearly poor their faces seemed well-proportioned. It didn’t take any genius to see that they were Choi and Kwon, as they had been perhaps twenty-five years ago.

“Why did I keep it?” said Choi. “Why should I not, Viper? Do you think I was so distraught at your disapproval that I’d destroy all the odds and ends of my past? I forgot I had it.” I think Kwon would have sold it better: Choi rarely lied, not directly – though the bastard had proved by his wicked promise to me that he could twist the truth in knots – and now his lack of practice told. Kwon looked incredulous, as well he might, for Choi’s attention had in fact been on him near constantly, and must have been ever since we’d met – how often had I known him to brood in here with his secret? He had been looking at the picture: remembering.

“You’re a poor liar,” Kwon informed him icily. Choi shrugged, then groaned.

“Very well; it was to remember you. Is that what you want to hear? And not just to recognize you if we ever met face to face again – but to remember what you were like before we were like _this_.”

“We were always like this!” cried Jiyong, knuckles whitening on his cane; clearly he had _not_ wanted to hear. “You were just too block-headed to know it!”

“No, Jiyong,” retorted Choi, now maddeningly calm. “Once upon a time we were friends. More than friends.”

“Being adopted doesn’t make you my _brother_.” Jiyong spat the word as if his mouth couldn’t wait to be rid of it.

“And yet I was,” Choi said. “No-one could deny it: I was as good a brother as I knew how to be.”

“You _took my place_!” There was a pause, and I felt – and was sure Choi knew – that we had come to the root of Kwon’s enmity, nourished and allowed to grow unchecked for so many years. I should have guessed this would all come down to envy.

“Your place?” Choi hacked out a cough that managed to sound sarcastic. “As what, the favored son? Our father hated us both, I think.”

“Yes, my place,” agreed Kwon; he had dropped the hand holding the photograph but still clutched it at his side. “And more than my place – you think all I wanted in life was to mend nets like that old whoremonger? No, you took everything; you _became_ everything!” He took a shuddering breath. “Everything I should have been.” Perhaps, I mused in the silence following this, the psychology ran a little deeper than not being made heir to a poor island fisherman.

“ _I_ didn’t want that place either,” said Choi impatiently. You think I’d have been content with it, never leaving Ulleungdo and Dokdo?” No, I thought: Choi’s existence was on a far larger scale; Kwon’s I was not yet sure about: smaller in all ways, perhaps. “It’s hardly my fault it was offered to me.”

“You were born with every advantage,” spat Kwon. “Because you were tall and tough and active he gave _you_ his training, _you_ the tools to follow him; and all the blows came to _me_.”

“Not…all of them.” Choi was quiet in comparison, near-blind eyes still fixed on the direction of Kwon’s voice. One hand clasped his ribs, though whether it was from the beating he’d just endured or a memory of childhood violence I couldn’t tell. “And I took plenty that were meant for _you_ , little brother – or did you forget?”

“ _No_ ,” said Kwon, looking even more the Viper at being addressed thus. “How could I? You always stood in front of me. And finally, finally it’s my turn! Your ship, your haul, your men – your _life_ : all mine.” He spoke as if being protected by Choi was the worst insult a man could receive. I had never heard such bitterness, not even from poor Sakurai; certainly not from the Wolf. At that Choi coughed, spat out a little blood, and it took a moment for me to realize there was a laugh in there too.

“That’s what really pained you, isn’t it: me standing in front.” His lip curled. “Older, bigger, stronger, smarter, so you resented me; what a tired cliché!” Kwon’s cherubic mouth thinned, and the hand holding his cane twitched. I wondered what another beating would do to Choi now. But he was still talking, unable to see the effect he was having: “Well that’s all rot!” announced Choi. “Because not once did I block your path. I cleared it for you – you could have had anything, anything it was in my power to help you get.” It was an astonishing declaration: this from the most self-interested of men, the Wolf whose characterization of humanity was piggishness, and whose philosophy was that you must claw and struggle your own lonely way upward? He sounded like a different person. But then there was the photograph…

“Anything,” said Kwon venomously, “except what I wanted, and what I was due as first son: recognition – authority! You _took it_ , and left me with an empty name.” There was a pause; blind or not you couldn’t miss the sheer fury in that speech. The smaller man was breathing light and fast, visibly holding back his arm.

“…You had plenty of authority over me,” Choi said at last, still not raising his voice. “Didn’t you exercise it daily? And didn’t I obey?”

“Only because you knew you had the upper hand – you were _humoring_ me!” The older man shook his head. I was amazed at his patience: they say a wounded beast is the most fractious, the most dangerous, but his tone held nothing other than what might be vague regret.

“I had no thought of humoring you. It gave me such pleasure to do as you bid – my only pleasure in that house.” His voice softened – a trap? I could scarcely imagine Choi speaking gently to any other human, let alone this one. “And I know you were happy too.”

“…You made me happy,” admitted Kwon through his teeth. “Until I came to my senses.”

“And I came to mine. Though it took far longer.”

“It was _pity_ , that’s why you were kind! From the strong to the weak – and I am not weak. Pity’s the last thing I wanted from any man.”

“Not pity,” said Choi slowly, and Kwon’s pale face flushed up, quick and hot over his sharp cheekbones, throwing his scar into livid effect.

“ _Be quiet_.”

“If it was pity I would have done only what I felt like; I wouldn’t have stirred a stump at your command. But I did, and you know why. I did because-” Kwon moved fast as a snake, a leap forward and another blow with the head of his heavy cane that struck Choi’s unprotected side. Choi grunted, eyebrows contorting, but I could tell he’d braced for it – had known it was coming. For several seconds he gasped harshly, then regained control of his body.

“Don’t say it!” Kwon looked nauseous, at what he had done to a helpless man or at what his erstwhile sibling was about to force upon him.

“Jiyong,” said Choi, slowly and deliberately as if he were a statesman reading a declaration of war. “I indulged you because I loved you.” Peering through the crack in the door I felt my mouth become an ‘o’ of surprise. Kwon had turned faintly green, and as unsettled as Choi was tranquil. He stood trembling, the photograph clutched so hard I thought it might combust through rage alone. “I loved you from the day our father brought me into that shack, and it was the sole thing I gave the bastard thanks for afterwards. You were very young – perhaps a year and a half – and so pale and quiet. I picked you up from that wet-nurse who minded you, took you right out of her arms, and you didn’t cry, you only looked at me. I’d spent my entire five years with people cursing me, yammering at me to mind or move on – racket, racket, racket. But you just _looked_ at me, and I knew I would do anything you wanted; just for that moment of peace.” Kwon was motionless under this calmly-delivered tirade. For the moment I couldn’t tell whether Choi’s speech was the truth – a completely unfathomable truth, given the man doing the speaking – or a weapon. With every new revelation the younger man looked like he was being struck. “Then our father broke it: he said something to you, or about you, I don’t remember. You were very small and perfect, like a doll; perhaps it was to do with that. But it was cruel – so dismissive. And I was an ignorant brat but I looked at him, and I looked at you, and the comparison won me to you entirely. That’s why I tried to shield you from him all those years, why I broke his rules and stole and toiled. Not because I pitied you: no, because of jealousy over you, and pride _in_ you.” He paused, head cocked for any sound that could tell him how Kwon was taking this. “You were more than I thought I deserved, Jiyong. But I loved you, so I tried to be better.”

“…You tried to be better?” said Kwon; as if his legs were unsteady he righted the desk chair one of them had overturned and sat down, well out of Choi’s reach. “Is that why Dad took _you_ to catch the big fish? To hunt the sea-lions on Dokdo? Is that why you did everything you could to be his successor, whatever the hell _that_ was worth?”

“Is that why he walloped me daily for not being his blood?” added Choi; he spat out another mouthful and repressed a groan: more cracked ribs at the very least, I thought. Kwon sneered, scar crinkling. “Yes: I wanted to learn whatever poor things he could teach me, because I wanted to be better than _him_. _You_ were already better – and I wanted you with me, working with me! You always wanted to go out on the boats,” he said, a touch of nostalgia that might just be concussion. “So whenever I could I took you – we snuck on board here too, remember? She was the only beautiful thing in the harbor.” His damaged eyes turned vaguely towards the cabin bulkhead. “Remember the locker, Jiyong? He was angry that afternoon, they _told_ him he was trespassing but he didn’t care, and we could hear his footsteps on deck; it was all I could think of to do. And he didn’t find you – at least, not that day.” Kwon bared his teeth in a grimace, as if the memory tasted like acid; he looked almost relieved when his brother moved on. “You wanted to learn to fish, so I taught you when he was too drunk to notice; and I hid you when he wasn’t. And when you wanted to play, we played, and it made me happy you still had that in you. I wanted us to rise together, to get away from him – _together_.”

“I know that!” exclaimed Kwon, now sounding as though he had his own mortal cut to deliver. “You told me you wanted to run away with me: the night you asked me to be your _lover_.” He said it triumphantly, and it was clear that in his mind this was the ultimate shame a man could have exposed about himself. Kwon held his breath expectantly. Choi shook his head; then he smiled. And at last it came to me, clod that I was! For our entire strange acquaintance I’d been trying to unravel the mystery that was Choi the Wolf: how he came to be, upon what anvil he had been hammered to create such a singular human. The philosophy books had explained a little, the gossip some more. And I’d been so sure it was a catastrophic love affair that had finally tipped him into his adult state of pragmatic nihilism. I had been trying to ferret out a woman in the case – such a woman she must have been, I’d thought! – but Choi’s great revelation had been nothing less than this: Kwon Jiyong.

“It was a mistake to spring it on you; you were too green.”

“Fourteen. And you at seventeen, you thought you could tell me anything and I’d accept it.”

“Seventeen, twenty, thirty,” Choi chanted with a wave of his stiff fingers. “I knew later that there would never have been a right time. It wasn’t just a mistake to tell you: I was mistaken altogether in feeling it. The man who falls in love is a fool, and double the fool if he confesses. But I was very young too; and I thought you cared for me.”

“I cared,” ground out Jiyong, black eyes blazing; he looked shocked and almost wounded that his brother could discuss this as easily as talking about the weather. “Until you told me I was precious, and the most beautiful thing in the world, and that you wanted me to be safe! And then I knew what a damn fool _I’d_ been.”

“You’ve an odd reaction to compliments,” observed Choi from his position on the floor. “I was baring my very core to you and you might have done what you liked with it. You chose to hate me. You didn’t want my love – fair enough. In your place, though, I’d have accepted the protection, I’d have made a slave out of me: taken the bait and spat the hook back out. You could have hated me and still had the material benefits.”

“The benefits of your body.” Kwon’s skin had regained its pallor; now it flushed again.

“In whatever way you wished: my strength, my mind, they were yours to command.”

“As if you presented me with a range of options!” the smaller man cried. “No, you charged straight in: confession, passion, invitation. And then you _kissed me_! I don’t know how you dared… No, I do: you thought I was too weak to stop you.” Judging by Kwon’s drift thus far, that supposition must have been the worst of all.

“No. You let me.” Choi reflected on this calmly; he seemed to be remembering. I wondered if he’d had to dive deep to retrieve that memory, or if it hovered close by his dreams. From the speed of his reply I guessed the latter. “For long enough, anyway. Or did I simply fantasize your arms around me? You can’t imagine how it felt when I thought you…” He trailed off. “Well, you soon corrected me.”

“Because once you let up and let me _think_ straight I knew: your love, your desire, came from me being the way I am: small and slight and pretty, no match for your physical prowess or for this _cruel cruel world_.” The lip curled again, but less distinctly this time. “And so we were reduced to pity again, to protection: your method of ‘love’ elevated _you_ – and there _I_ was, back in the position of the helpless.” Choi shook his head again, but the younger man continued. “I always hated weakness,” said Kwon. “It had kept me from being the real son, kept me from excitement and _life_. I’d been thinking on it vaguely, you know, for some time, since I was around twelve: why were you doing all this for me? I’d only been grateful before, I’d adored you for it, and for taking those blows for me. Still, I began to wonder: was this a tactic to raise yourself even higher as a son? Playing the hero, the _real man_. And that night I realized it didn’t matter why; because every chivalrous step you took up, it didn’t bring me with you, not in my mind and not in anyone else’s – it pushed me even further down. _That’s_ why I told you to go to hell!”

“Oh, Jiyong,” said Choi sadly. “You’re an ignorant man.” Kwon took a deep breath.

“ _That’s_ why I cut my face open, right before your eyes with your own damn belt knife – so you would never think I was pretty and precious and weak again! And you looked so _helpless_ when I did it – ahh, it was glorious!” His black eyes stopped their flashing and darkened. “Then that very night you vanished, and it showed me it was _you_ who was weak. Not me.”

There was a silence after this, broken only by Choi’s stertorous breathing; if any more injuries befell him I wouldn’t vouch for his prospects. The cane gripped convulsively in Kwon’s hand didn’t make me feel optimistic about that, but for the moment he was staring at his brother with complete absorption; I thought I might walk right into the cabin and he’d be as blind to me as Choi. His announcement had made me stretch _my_ eyes, though: what an action to take, and as a child! Kwon was not the petty, vengeful younger son I had imagined; his destructiveness – and capacity, though maybe not taste, for self-destruction – was as extreme as Choi’s. I decided with some irony that they rather suited each other than otherwise. And still they stared.

Was the silence a contest? I wondered after a while, and would it be a win or a loss to break it? Choi didn’t seem to care either way; with a muffled groan he raised himself a little on his powerful arms and said:

“That was the only reason?” Kwon twitched in his seat; in that instant I suspected he might beat his brother to death and not lament it, but somehow his cane held fast. Choi looked in his general direction, sightlessly, solemnly. “A hatred of being mis-seen?” He spoke slowly, as if some rigid structure inside him was being taken apart piece by piece. “So, without that – and I entirely rebuff the idea of your fragility, you know – would…would it still have been disgusting to you?”

Kwon appeared to have no answer to that, or none that he’d willingly give. Instead he flowed from his chair to the floor in a silent sinuous movement, the better to look the older man in the face. He regarded him with his mouth tightly closed and with great attention, as though the Wolf was some distasteful but undeniably fascinating species. Choi was still staring upward at where he imagined his brother to be, and when Kwon next spoke he started a little.

“ _Seunghyun_ ,” said Jiyong softly, dangerously, and at last I knew the Wolf’s real name. Choi’s huge eyes turned in the direction of his voice, and for a moment they appeared to make eye contact; then the bigger man closed his fist in frustration. How hard it must be to gauge an opponent without reading their face! This was obviously of no concern to Kwon, however, who had almost every advantage he could wish to possess. “Seunghyun. Do you love me now?” He gave no clue as to what answer he would prefer to receive.

“Should I?!”

“ _Do_ you?”

“How can I tell?” replied Choi, sounding bitter himself. “I can’t see you.”

“The scar hasn’t gone away.”

“You think if I really did love you it would make any difference to me? You seem to find it an improvement, yourself. And there are many things about you that are so very much worse.”

Kwon made a small displeased noise, uncertain; but he quickly drew himself together. To my considerable alarm he leaned forward and advanced a few paces on his hands and knees, lethal as a leopard. I could tell Choi was listening to the creak of the boards; his reach was long, he had grown up taller than Kwon would have remembered him, and at the limit of that reach he expended his painfully hoarded energy in an explosion of movement – in a second his hand was around Kwon’s throat and tightening. And although his hands were not strikingly large I knew their power: they looked deadly against that pale and elegant curve. Choi let out a cry of low triumph, colored unsurprisingly by sharp physical pain, at which Kwon bared his teeth and attempted to hiss in a breath but otherwise did not seem dismayed. He had _let_ the Wolf catch him, and did not resist as the injured man drew him slowly forward with his great strength, until at last he was in range of Choi’s failing eyes.

“Well?” demanded Kwon, in a voice that came out as little more than a squeak as Choi’s thumb pressed against his larynx. For a minute no reply was forthcoming: Choi was staring up at him, at his face, and when he at last made eye contact, real eye contact, Kwon inhaled sharply. Choi’s gaze traveled thirstily across his features. Then he said:

“Yes, Jiyong – I do love you dearly. And in truth I didn’t need to see you to know it.” Kwon’s eyes were enormous, and black as pitch-seams. “I loved you the night I ran from you, and you haven’t much changed since then. How could I stop? Though I’ve tried, believe me.” The smaller man touched Choi’s throttling fingers with his free hand: he wanted to speak. Choi obligingly let up just enough.

“Then…we’re even,” Jiyong panted, lips parted in a snarl as he drew breath. “Because even when I wanted to I couldn’t forget _you_ : I dreamed of you, of the past, of that night – year upon year upon year.” Choi made a deep rumbling noise I had never heard before, the monstrous purr of a giant cat. “I cut myself over and over in my sleep – almost as many times as you kissed me. I hated it! And now that you’re _helpless_ ,” Kwon murmured in a tone I would personally find petrifying but which made Choi’s damaged eyes soften, “well, here we are. I don’t need to resent you anymore, not now the tables are turned!” He touched Choi’s hand again, gripping it, and I saw Choi wince as it pressed his wounds – on purpose, to ensure he had his brother’s perfect attention. “I can do as I like with you now, Seunghyun – I can even love you. _If_ I choose to. And whatever I choose, you will toe my line.”

“…What tables?” asked Choi in his deep voice, scratchier than usual but with a fall of great tenderness. “There’s nothing weak in you, Jiyongie; there never was. You’re as much a man as I am, if you can call that any kind of compliment. More.” Kwon let out a small hitching sound at the familiar turn of name. “I’m in your hands,” said Choi, smiling his true smile with bloody teeth: a terrible sight. It was himself all over, a piece of art soaked in brutality; but the younger man was holding his breath, eyes wide, waiting for the next word as if Choi was an oracle. “Under your command – as I always was, if you hadn’t been too knuckle-headed to see it. So command me, brother: won’t that prove your power at last?” Kwon swallowed. Choi must have felt it under his hand because his smile vanished; he gazed at whatever he could see of the smaller man, expectant.

“…Then do what you did that night.” Kwon leaned closer. “Only this time do it right.” I saw Choi’s thumb briefly caress his pale throat and creep up in wonder to touch his scar; then he drew him down and kissed him.

I had never seen a man kiss another man like that; in fact I’d never seen a man and a woman do so, not in that way: a press and glide of the lips that looked more intimate than fucking. It had a foreign quality, like a Parisian cinematograph image, and I imagined Kwon had never experienced anything remotely like it before. Judging by his gasp he had not; for a moment his right hand curled itself into a fist before it settled gently on Choi’s battered face, while the cane in his other hand clattered to the floor. I gathered this was something the Wolf had picked up in America, and I privately resolved to try it, if it would get me anything close to the degree of desire that showed on Kwon’s features when the older man broke off.

“I don’t want to protect you,” said Choi softly, transferring his choking hand to the nape of Kwon’s neck. “And like this I can’t – I will never be able to again.” A predatory smile crossed Kwon’s lips. “So _you_ direct me, Jiyongie: what shall I do now? And tomorrow, and the next day?” The smaller man’s fingers traced his brow, framing the gaze that could see him only at this lovers’ distance, and I thought that if Choi could just see his own eyes now all our arguments about whether he possessed an immortal soul might be put to bed. Then Kwon got a firm grip on the torn and bloody collar of his shirt.

“Now?” he said imperiously. “Do it again.” And he kissed Choi once more, so hard it made me wince though Choi certainly made no complaint, in spite of the fact that I was fairly sure someone had broken his nose; so hard that when they at last fell apart Kwon’s mouth was bloody too. “As for tomorrow,” he continued in a fierce tone, “why, I’ll tell you: we’re to hunt as a pack!”

“Oh?” said Choi once he had his breath back, evidently amused. “And how should we do that? My crew tried to kill me today, for the second time, I might add. Moreover,” he continued, quelled, “I can’t see. Some captain!” I imagined the fatal depression that would have surely gripped him at this, even if the crew hadn’t finished him off: Choi the Wolf, blind and helpless in charge of his ship! Quite apart from preserving his life, Kwon’s arrival and their reunion could not have been timed better.

“Easily.” Kwon raised his brother’s chin and went on in a voice that was now rapid and efficient. “I’m going to berth in the Neukdae – with you. I’ll sail her – with you: you for the expertise and me for discipline.” He leaned forward and briefly touched his lips to Choi’s brow. “As your eyes. I’m sending the most awkward men over to the Fusan-Maru and replacing them with mine, and we’ll cruise in company. Between us we should be able to sweep the Bering Sea clean before they sign this thing!”

“Oh, that,” said Choi, sounding impressed and fond in equal measure.

“Yes, that. It’s going to be a pretty little battlefield once everyone hears it could be their final season! But our boats combined will deal with the seals, and my cannon will deal with the sealers!”

“Oh,” said Choi again, this time with heat, “talk like _that_ some more.” Kwon granted him a clipped smile. “But who’s making sure my mutinous bastard crew doesn’t run off with your ugly steamer while you’re protecting _my_ hide?”

“That’s no problem: my first mate Ueno will run her and keep order. He’s the only man among them who does what I say with pleasure – besides, I’ll offer him an extra share in the event that we make it back safely.”

“I daresay your first mate is in love with you,” said Choi, gingerly touching his side. “Your methods of persuasion don’t leave much to recommend them otherwise.”

“Be quiet. You always did talk too much.”

“Yes, my love,” agreed the older man, though without repentance. Kwon gave an ill-tempered little growl but neither hit, beat, nor shot his brother. “But can you really leave her to another man?”

“I don’t give a god-damn about her,” Kwon declared. “Other than that she makes me money.”

“It seems you embody my ideals better than I do myself: you truly are _ruthless_.” Choi smoothed his free hand along a seam in the planking. “…But I hope you’ll love the Neukdae.”

“Of course I will: she’s one of the few sweet parts of my past. She’s _you_ , brother: and such a wolf she is! We’ll sail her ‘til our hold is filled, this year and the next, license and the law be damned! We’re going to dominate the sea.” Choi was grinning again, leaning into Kwon’s touch as if this was the sweetest, tenderest love speech. “We’ll rage ‘til we can rage no more,” Kwon promised, close enough for his breath to touch Choi’s mouth. “Isn’t that life?”

“ _Yes_ ,” gasped Choi, and was cut off as their lips met.

It was at this moving moment that a loud bang and a bevy of irascible voices jerked me from the keyhole and back to an awareness of myself. Someone was striding along the passageway. I cast a last wild look at the cabin door before tearing myself away and running to head them off: it was not a scene to be interrupted. In the hunters’ quarters I found some old faces – none of them had had to suffer under Choi the way the sailors had, and it seemed most of them were staying – and some new ones. The neatest of these was giving the bickering men sharp raps on the head with a loud-hailer and bawling in Japanese to make himself heard.

“Is anyone on this damned floating antique bilingual?!”

“Here,” I called, pushing my way through. “Kang, second mate!”

“Thank goodness. Your first mate’s aboard the steamer so I guess you’re being promoted. Ueno, also first mate. Now for the love of god sort this mess out!” Having successfully delegated, he stomped off and I waded into the fray.

Once I was done assigning berths to the new men I hurried along and up the foremost hatchway, and was interpreting for a couple of our hands who did not speak Japanese in the waist – I hoped the language of sailing at least was universal – when Kwon located me, his lips redder and tenderer than windburn could believably make them. He’d had enough presence of mind not to dally with his lover, at least: good. Perhaps he could make some order of this madhouse.

“Mr. Kang, there is a weeping lunatic in a cabin off the fo’c’sle.”

“Oh, no, sir,” I reassured him quickly. “That was our cook; he’s been stabbed. He gets a little querulous when he doesn’t know what’s happening.” As might we all. With a pang it struck me that the thieving half-starved Myungsoo had outlived the magnificent and decent Jongkook; truly, death had no sense of moral worth. The smaller man raised an eyebrow, the one hint of surprise.

“My brother, I suppose?” he said, suddenly claiming the relationship as if it was a matter of course.

“Uh…no, sir. It was me.” The eyebrow rose higher, then lowered as Kwon turned his feline stare upon me more closely. “Though the captain might have been an influence…”

“I don’t doubt it.” Kwon glanced towards the bustle aboard the Fusan-Maru, baring his sharp and delicate profile to me; I thought I heard him mutter something like: “Hard to imagine _my_ aristocrat being so enterprising.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Nothing. A passenger of mine. I hear you’re the Neukdae’s medical man.”

“Well, as far as it goes.”

“Then go below and see what you can do for Captain Choi. And perhaps later tonight you’ll see to the injured aboard the steamer.” I ducked my head obediently and shuffled off, but not before I got another glimpse of his face. After all that tender reconciliation he still hadn’t cracked a smile – only a pale glow from within betrayed his happiness and satisfaction. I tried to imagine him and Choi working in unison instead of at each other’s throats, and felt very sorry for the other nations’ sealers hoping for a decent haul. But I quickly stopped worrying about them: what about me? The idea of multiple captains in one ship, let alone these two…how long before they bared their fangs again? The only way to find out was to ask the man himself; so I went below.

“Dae?” said Choi cautiously as he heard someone step into the cabin, his hands flexing in preparation. He was sitting on his bunk, where I presumed Kwon had moved him, holding his ribs and grimacing. “Is that you?”

“Yes.” Even more cautiously I moved my face within a foot of him; he squinted, then relaxed just enough that I stopped feeling in immanent danger. “Mr. Kwon sent me to tend to you.” Choi nodded and began to remove his shirt, but the movements looked so painful I stopped him and did it myself, laying him down and taking a gentle inventory of his litany of injuries. I shouldn’t have cared if I hurt him – I should hurt him with pleasure, but I couldn’t; not while he was like this.

“Yes, I doubt Jiyong would make the best nurse himself,” he said in a cheerful voice, snarling a little as I gently prodded his side where the cane had struck him. Something was bruised under there, but not as badly as the stunning black-and-red burst where something worse had struck him square in the sternum; and I was more concerned about his ribs than anything.

“I don’t know; nurses can wield a great deal of power over their patients.” Choi’s damaged eyes darted my way automatically; ah, that was right – as far as he knew I hadn’t been privy to that intensely private liaison, so how would I know how Kwon felt about power? I quickly talked on, consulted my book, tied up his ribs again. “Mr. Kwon said particularly that I was to set your nose,” I told him after looking up the method. He shrugged; I don’t suppose he cared one way or the other, he probably lamented his shattered navigation device more. But Kwon did – he obviously had an eye for Choi’s beauty: the way he’d looked at him after that kiss! Doing it made me feel nauseous and I hoped I hadn’t botched it, though it wouldn’t matter much, not if I’d botched his more dangerous injuries too. “If you make it through this season,” I instructed as I sewed up his old head wound again, “you must see a real doctor! Before, if you have any sense.”

“And if _you_ make it through the season you should switch your studies from literature to medicine: become a physician.” He spread his handsome, deadly fingers. “Why sit philosophizing on life when you can hold it in the palm of your hand?” I guessed Choi had forgiven his brother for demolishing his books: his expression was one of extreme self-satisfaction, one that could only have been caused by his voluntary submission to Kwon Jiyong.

“I take it this reconciliation doesn’t mean you’ll temper your behavior,” I said resignedly, and gave an inward shudder: the Wolf had been enough by himself – two predators together might prove more than the seafaring world could collectively stand. Choi chuckled.

“Don’t be a fool, Dae. Life is no less brutal simply because I’ve got what I want – what I always wanted.” His fist closed, as if his powerful fingers were still around Kwon’s neck, and his grin was wolfish but almost giddy with happiness; he didn’t even attempt to hide it. “Now my brutality shall be exercised in keeping it.”

“And what about your brutality towards the rest of us?”

“That depends on how you behave, doesn’t it?” He grunted as I bandaged his ankle. “I want you to stay on as mate – I don’t care to have his crew replace all my Koreans, even if they _were_ planning to skin me. Besides, I need someone bilingual.” I wondered if this was because the Fusan-Marus were largely Japanese or because he might not have absolute unconditional trust in his brother’s sweet mood – such as it was – lasting. “You know the ship,” he went on, “and though he says he’ll pick men with sail experience I’ll have to test their abilities: how can a hand who’s only worked on those tubs handle my Neukdae?” Despite myself I was touched that he trusted me to help sail her – I felt I was really, practically useful. On the other hand I began to calculate the likelihood of being shot by the Russians or the Japanese authorities: fairly high, I thought, with the privateering siblings egging each other on.

“You’ll need an attendant, too, if your eyes don’t improve,” I said flatly. He bridled at that, and I sensed he’d just had a taste of what Kwon had lived with all his youth; the statement to men as proud as those two that they might not be strong enough, good enough, was no doubt enraging.

“Not at all; I know this ship like I know my own skin. I can walk her stem to stern, below decks or above – even in the rigging when I’ve had some practice, I expect. I can tell how she’s sailing from the sound of her, from the touch of the wind. The only thing I can’t do is see what’s coming; and Jiyong’s eyes are sharp enough for both of us.”

“He’s really going to leave the Fusan-Maru?”

“Yes,” said Choi, gleeful with possession through his many debilitating pains. “He has no softer sensibilities at all – isn’t it marvelous? We’ll sail the ships in tandem, work them together to get the best haul – but he belongs with me.” He reached out and touched the smooth pine of the Neukdae’s side. “We used to creep aboard here as children when he was on fire to run away to sea; it’s only proper that he should have her now.” _And you_ , I said silently.

“So he’ll return his ship to the company at the end of the season?”

“Who can say?” His face clouded but quickly grew fierce and happy again. “There’s a ban on seal-hunting coming,” he informed me. “We’ve all heard it now, and the rest of the season is going to be a pitched battle for the biggest pile of skins: The Japanese, the Americans, the British…and us.” He aimed a truly piratical grin in my general direction. “And between us he and I will wipe the ocean clean – oh, Dae, just you wait and see!”

“…Lie down and sleep for a while, sir,” I advised, covering him with a blanket: excitement was not the thing for him just now. “I’m done.”

“Wait and see,” he murmured, closing his eyes once he’d raised his hand in acknowledgement for patching him up. “You’re going to love it.”

* * *

After supper, once a sense of order had been hammered into the Neukdaes and the new upper foremast roused out and laid along ready for the morning, I sent most of the hands to turn in; Korean or Japanese they were exhausted to a man, my remaining shipmates especially bewildered and downcast by the double-quick march of change. Kwon had ordered a minimal crew through the night watches – the Neukdae wasn’t going anywhere in her condition and in any case was tied stoutly to the Fusan-Maru – and for the first time in what felt like months a sense of quiet drifted over us.

“How long ya reckon he can go on like this?” Ham asked me, looking at Myungsoo calmly; he’d slung his cot by the invalid’s bed and was watching over him, a great relief to my temper and my conscience.

“Who knows? His wound has healed, on the surface, anyway. No dressings to change. If he comes back to himself he might be able to make a living again – but then he could be delirious forever.”

“Mad,” the older man confirmed. I nodded gloomily. “Wouldn’t switch places with ‘im,” said Ham, gazing with equanimity at his stump. “Guess you bite harder than the Wolf – or that ol’ shark – when you’ve a mind to, Mr. Kang.”

“Ugh. Don’t.” I hated to hear it, the very thought made my flesh creep; but how could I deny it when the evidence of my brutality was here before me every day? At least Choi’s victims had recovered or were gone clean away; in mental parentheses I said a quick, fervent prayer that Sakurai and Jongkook were somewhere better – not that that would be hard. But Myungsoo just _lay_ here tormenting me, neither dead nor alive but in the perfect condition to stab at my remorse. I wondered if he knew, lying there in his fever-dreams. Perhaps he did; it would please him, I thought.

“You’re goin’ across to the boys, sir?” Ham inquired. “Hell, the Wolf gave ‘em what for!”

“He certainly did.” I’d have to take extra medical supplies.

“Yeah, well, tell Tokko to fuck ‘imself when you see ‘im.”

I nodded to the phlegmatic old man and went to my cabin, unshipping the medicine chest – we kept it in a locker to stop the hands getting at the drugs – and putting on my warmest coat; the wind had gone down but the air was crisp. I went to report to Kwon that I was going across to the Fusan-Maru, then realized I had no idea where he was berthing, so I trotted along to Choi’s cabin. The door was shut. I raised my hand to knock; but I thought better of it. Tired and shaken as I was, I didn’t think I could cope with both captains at once. Instead I took another peek through the keyhole. I found the lamp burning low for the sake of Choi’s eyes. He was in his bunk, flat on his back where I’d put him, and the Neukdae’s gentle roll swayed the bed like a cradle. Kwon was sitting on the floor, a surprisingly subservient position; his head was pillowed next to Choi’s bandaged chest – I’d warned him about the state of his brother’s ribs – and Choi’s lethal hand was combing gently through his hair. Both men had their eyes closed. No; no need to bother them.

I told the lookout where I was going and pulled myself across to the steamer; my rowing skills had become tolerable but I probably looked like a mere landsman to the sailor who threw me a rope ladder; how these men could have kept their frail tubs swimming in that storm was beyond me. Making sure the boat was not going to float away I tied the medicine chest to the line they sent down and ran aboard. The Fusan-Maru was dark, only the binnacle and toplights showing where she lay, but I could already see that she was not a patch on the Neukdae for beauty. Her steel deck was almost empty, another skeleton crew, and when I was pointed below I heard the loud reverberation of snoring. Two old Neukdaes, Tokko and another man, put their heads out. They looked uncertain: I’d not taken part in that apocalyptic fight on either side and it was tough even for me to say where my loyalties lay. Still, when I smiled and gave Tokko Ham’s insulting greeting they tipped me a nod and seemed relieved.

“All right,” I said, stepping into the sickbay, a long screened-off part of the lower deck. “Who’s first?”

There were many of them, though I was happy to find that none were likely to die. A hunter named Mizuno led me to each in order of seriousness, and I bandaged, set splints, stitched, and dosed both Koreans and Japanese. Though some had been injured in the storm, most of the wounds were caused by Choi – no great surprise – and the damage one sightless man had managed to do to all these hard-bitten hands was astounding. The familiar appreciation and ardent fear of his power sent a shiver up my spine. I was setting the broken nose of the man Kwon had smashed in the face, during his first anger at seeing his brother hanging upside down, when Mizuno yawned and left me.

“How’s it over there?” asked broken-nose in a muffled voice after a long bout of cursing. I shook my head.

“How would _you_ like both of them giving you orders?”

“Not bloody much,” he said emphatically. “Better here, fucking Japanese or not.”

“Quite. And imagine what I’ll be dealing with once they start fighting again!” I had no faith whatsoever in the ability of the Wolf and the Viper to enjoy a serene domestic life.

“Gonna be a hard season, Mr. Kang,” he agreed with a sympathetic eye-roll. There was nothing much I could say to that and his conversation was fuel to my gloomy thoughts, so I worked on in silence. Someone came in behind me, but instead of Mizuno I heard a well-modulated, articulate Korean voice say:

“Sorry I’m late, I was giving a service. Can I be of any help?” I spun round, and to my complete amazement I saw a young man I knew! The sight was so incongruous, however, that for a minute I had no idea where I’d met him. He was… I racked my brain, then remembered: we had been at the same school in Seoul, he a year below me, but I remembered his face and the way it shone; he’d been a Christian, much more fervent than I. It was shining now, equally astonished – he knew me too! My mouth opened on a greeting, if only I could remember his name; but before I could speak his hand moved in a quelling gesture, and in his benevolent eyes I saw a harried expression. I shut my mouth again on a series of questions like what he was doing, how he had come here – surely this mild and well-bred person could not be Kwon’s associate.

We went on round the sickbay, my acquaintance nursing with some skill and the gentleness of manner I remembered, murmuring soothing words of good cheer to the former Neukdaes. At last he dimmed the lamps and we walked quietly out, down the passage – it smelled of smoke and minerals from the engine below us – and into a small cabin.

“Kang Daesung!” exclaimed the younger man in a low voice as soon as the door was shut. “I thought I was seeing things! I’m Dong Youngbae,” he added, noticing my sleepy idiocy. “I was in the form below you at Gyungshin.”

“I remember,” I assured him. “But how the hell did you _get_ here?” Youngbae silently reproached me for my language, then told me, an outpouring of bad luck, and I found I couldn’t keep quiet – at last, someone who might sympathize!

“A shipwreck? Dreadful – I was just pushed overboard!”

“And then Captain Kwon picked me up but-”

“I know! He-”

“…He wouldn’t take me back to Nagasaki,” finished Youngbae.

“Me too!” It was all highly improbable, our two parallel tales – even more unlikely that we should meet here and now; but oh, what a glorious thing to find a man who could understand what I had gone through: a man like me.

Ah. But no; I had to take that last part back, didn’t I. Youngbae was the man I had once been: listening to him, I realized he had managed to remain unchanged through it all, through the brutality and bleakness that surrounded him. But he had been sailing with Kwon, who didn’t seem given to opening himself up or encouraging other people to do so. Choi by contrast had constantly questioned my existence by showing me his true self, had fought for its validity with all his vast eloquence: he had molded me, and I had _not_ emerged unchanged. I thought of Myungsoo; and I knew that, in however small a part, I was now part wolf. I only hoped I would be able to make something good of it – instead of letting it make me a monster.

“From what I hear of Choi the Wolf I’m not surprised he made you slave for him. The stories I’ve heard!” exclaimed Youngbae, not helping. “Even Kwon hates him enough that it’s an obsession.”

“Ditto Choi to your Viper – I daresay they’ve been chasing each other this entire trip.” Youngbae shook his head; he was sitting on a considerable fund of bitterness and had obviously been repressing it, good man that he was. I admired him wholeheartedly. “You know they’re brothers?” I added. “Well, foster brothers.”

“I didn’t. I suppose it explains a lot.”

“It was a lifelong feud.”

“Was?” inquired Youngbae, raising his head. And, in a tone that showed he was suppressing some inappropriately unchristian hope: “Is he dead, hyung?” I wasn’t sure which death he had wished for, but I was obliged to disappoint him.

“No. They’re reconciled. Absurd, but there it is. Apparently Choi’s brush with death moved the Viper: now they’re planning to work together.” Youngbae pulled a peculiar face in which his natural sweetness warred with alarm.

“Oh! Well. I can’t contest the ideal of brotherly love, of laying down arms.”

“I know for a fact they’ll not be laying down _any_ arms. But you might as well take heart: Kwon’s moving over to the Neukdae, so if you’re on civil terms with that Ueno your life might be about to get easier.”

“And what about your life, hyung?” Youngbae asked, laying a hand on my forearm. I turned my own palm up, observed the hard calluses I had toiled and bled for.

“They want me back in the schooner,” I said darkly. “I’m being promoted to first mate. Can you imagine what they’ll be like together? No sealer will be safe – nor any of us.” I shuddered again; I was so tired, mentally more than physically, from the events of the last two days: so much destruction, so much high feeling and death.

“You’re a sailor now?” Youngbae surmised after a minute.

“Sailor, cook, doctor, tutor – whatever he told me to be.” Youngbae glanced at his closed door, then shuffled a little closer; his bearing had changed abruptly and I could almost see the low crackle of energy – of an internal strength like Jongkook had had strength.

“Then d’you know where we are right now? Our bearings, I mean.” I struggled to think: I had glanced at the chart after the storm when I was bringing Choi downstairs, before Kwon broke his navigational instrument, but I hadn’t had the time for stargazing tonight and so I only had the vaguest idea.

“If Kwon has a chart I can find out: it’s a clear night.”

“I know the stars,” said the younger man. “It was all I had to entertain me these last months: there’s scarcely a book on board. I’ll run up and fix the principals.” This he did, and when he came back he put one finger to his lips and led me silently into Kwon’s cabin. A room more different to Choi’s light floating library I couldn’t imagine, but there was the necessary desk with its maps and charts. In the dim light of a dark-lantern I peered at the top one, then grinned.

“No need for your stars, my dear chap: look.” On a spot very near the area where I had supposed we were, someone with a fine pencil had drawn a tiny wolf’s head, a snake coiling around it into eternity. I supposed, judging by this, that Kwon had got exactly what he’d wished for. “We’re perhaps a hundred and fifty miles West of Hooper Bay. Alaska,” I explained at his blank look.

“Alaska!”

“Right.” It was my turn to light up: I knew what he was proposing, or at least what he had been. Now he looked understandably nervous, but I no longer was; my weariness had fallen away. “If we have good winds – and no more storms – we could reach it in three or four days. I’ve a boat tied on at the stern, I came across by myself. If we can slip away unseen I’ll get us there!” We might even be picked up by the American sealers that clustered on the Alaskan coast in the summer months. “Then we can wire for money and book passage to Japan – and home!”

“ _Can_ we get away?” said Youngbae in a whisper.

“What choice do we have? I can’t stand there and watch them terrorize the entire Bering Sea! We’ll manage it: there’re only a few men on watch right now and some of them are Neukdaes. I doubt they’ll say a word; two men drowned today…or was it yesterday…and the hands almost murdered Choi. They won’t rat again.” I had to believe it, and the warmth rising in my chest told me I _did_. “I’ll empty out the medicine chest and we’ll fill it with supplies. Put on all the warm clothes you can find, Magellan jackets, hats, gloves – for me, too – and grab as many water flasks as you can. Food that’ll keep. Trust me,” I urged him. “They’re going to make this ocean a bloodbath or get themselves killed trying; this is our only chance!”

“Right.” Youngbae clapped me on the back: strong muscles, he would pull well. “Grab what you need from here, a compass, the technical things. Then bring the medicine chest to my cabin.”

We did it all in perhaps thirty minutes. In the meantime the ship had grown even quieter, and we crept up the ladder with our burdens unopposed. The weather was fine, the wind was fresh and a couple of points off West: not perfect but very far from bad. Quietly I whipped the medicine chest and a miscellaneous sack to the line still hanging at the stern and lowered it down to the boat. A drowsy lookout wandered up: an old Neukdae, a reliable hand but clearly enjoying some relaxation from the usual rigid standards under Ueno’s more humane command. Youngbae had ducked into the shadows.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to check the sickbay,” I told the sailor. “But I expect Mizuno can handle things anyway.”

“Aye,” said the familiar accent. “I reckon he’ll have to.” There was a tense pause and he lowered his voice comfortably. “Ye can tell your mate to come out: ain’t no rats on deck just now.” A flash of teeth between his moustache and beard. “You’ll be off to Alaska,” he murmured in a companionable way. I nodded. “Brass monkeys,” he said with an exaggerated shiver. I smiled back and gave him a bow.

“Good luck,” I told him. “I hope not to be seeing you – and next time use your head when you choose a ship!” He shrugged and beckoned Youngbae out, pointing him down the stern ladder.

“No more sealin’ after they sign that fuckin’ paper. Which it is back to fishin’ for us.” And with that he wandered off, drawing the mate of the watch over to the far bow to look at the Neukdae. I nipped down into the boat, where Youngbae had stowed our things and was sitting peering up at me anxiously. I untied the painter from the Fusan-Maru’s side, pushed off, and silently shipped the oars. In the dark above us I could hear the rambling of the ex-Neukdae, a cover for our low dip and swish. Then only the ships’ lights were visible, and all human sound faded.

No-one raised a cry, no boats followed us. Once at a safe distance I showed Youngbae the rudiments of rowing and got out the lantern and compass, and when I’d made sure of the direction I stepped the mast and set sail, sitting at the tiller with the sheet under my hand and a bubbling feeling of hope. The canvas drew bravely, so I let him stop rowing and we sat there gazing at the dwindling lights of the Neukdae, the clear-cut stars above her: a beautiful creature, and one I never wanted to see again. Exactly how I felt about Choi and his lovely venomous brother.

“Well,” said Youngbae quietly after a long time, “I’m going to pray.”

“Just pray for a fair wind and safe landing,” I said in extreme earnest. Then I prayed myself, in my unformed way: that we would make it home, that I would learn something from all this, that I would live a better and more useful life: that the things Choi Seunghyun had taught me, good and evil, would not be in vain. And finally I prayed for the two of them. I didn’t wish them dead, neither did I wish them ecstatic: I wished for them humanity, in the highest sense of the word, that they might raise themselves out of the morass and above brutality at last. I wasn’t counting on that, of course; I simply prayed that, whatever and whenever their end would be, they would be together. It was all the Wolf had ever wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And that's how they got together!  
> Actually in the book the brothers don't even have a scene together - no argument, no secret photo, no nothing. I adapted this from the drama, in which Jiyong's character has a massive inferiority complex because he has a deformed leg. In that the Wolf has fond memories of him as a kid (nothing romantic obvs!), and dies in his cabin holding a photo of both of them. I just souped it up a bit :)
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading! I know this one was a little different from my usual, but I had so much fun writing it and drawing the illustrations. Next week there'll be a little bonus fic, once the Wolf has recovered enough for some proper 'alone time' XD.
> 
> If anyone was enjoying the seafaring theme, let me recommend the Aubrey/Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian! It has 20 books and is set during the Napoleonic Wars in the British Royal Navy. It's famous for its painstaking sailing and historical detail (including stuff like how the naval officers tried to work around the sodomy death penalty and their practical attitude towards homosexuality), but it also has amazing stories and complex characters, a wide view of the early 19th century world on every continent, and best of all two super bromance main characters, naval officer Jack and ship's physician/spy Stephen. Their relationship becomes deep and sweet and profound over decades (they call each other 'my dear' and 'honey' and stuff), and they're just adorable.  
> A couple of the books were adapted in the movie _Master and Commander_ with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, and I have to say they did a good job with the characters! Really great movie, take a look and see if it grabs you.
> 
> Ok, more from me next week! If you enjoyed the story I'd love to hear from you :)


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